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Editor:
Tonya Allen
allen@pop.psu.edu
PRInformation
Fall 2002
New External Research Funding
Adolescence to Adulthood in Chicago Neighborhoods
Dr. Sean Reardon, assistant professor of education and sociology, has received funding for five years from the William T. Grant Foundation for a project focusing on neighborhood context and adolescent development, using longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods.
Assessing the Impact of Substance Abuse on Employment Status
Dr. Joseph Terza, associate professor of economics, has been awarded funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation under the Foundation's Substance Abuse Policy Research Program to support an 18-month study assessing the impact of substance abuse on employment status.
Choosing Schools, Choosing Neighborhoods: Understanding the 'New Segregation'
Dr. Sean Reardon, assistant professor of education and sociology, received funding for two years from the National Academy of Education for a project which will characterize the patterns and trends of the 'new segregation' with detailed analyses of census data and public and private school enrollment data, and investigate the causes of these patterns by studying why families with children choose the schools and neighborhoods they do.
Concentrated Homelessness in Metropolitan Neighborhoods
Dr. Barrett Lee, professor of sociology and demography, received funding for one year from the Brookings Institution for a project which aims to identify metropolitan neighborhoods with emergency and transitional shelters that house substantial concentrations of homeless people. Census data and GIS methodology are being used to examine locational and other characteristics of these "critical mass" neighborhoods in 2000 and to document any changes in them since 1990.
Consumer Assessments of Health Plans Study (CAHPS) II
Dr. Pamela Farley Short, director, Center for Health Care and Policy Research, and professor of health policy and administration and demography, with Dr. Dennis Scanlon, Dr. S. Diane Brannon, and Dr. Robert Weech-Maldonado, received funding from RAND/AHRQ for five years in support of a second phase of CAHPS which will emphasize the development of consumer based surveys in new areas, the refinement of techniques for reporting survey findings to consumers that will have greater impact on their health care choices, and working with health plans and providers to make CAHPS surveys more useful in the quality improvement efforts of these organizations.
Developing a Tool to Assess Nutrition and Health Information Sources, Knowledge and Beliefs Among the Rural Low Income Elderly
Dr. David R. Johnson, director, Survey Research Center; and professor of sociology and human development and family studies, received funding from USDA to develop a tool for assessing sources of information, beliefs about nutrition/health and knowledge about available nutrition/health resources including early detection services, which will be piloted among the elderly of economically distressed rural counties in Appalachia.
Filling Gaps in Health Insurance over Time
Dr. Pamela Farley Short, director, Center for Health Care and Policy Research, and professor of health policy and administration and demography, received funding from the Commonwealth Fund to examine losses and transitions in Americans' health insurance over a four-year period, using data from the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).
Leveraging Nepal-DHS with GIS-related Technologies
Dr. Stephen A. Matthews, senior research associate, associate professor of demography and sociology (adjunct geography), and director of the GIA Core, has received support for one year from Macro International for this project.
The Place of Religion in the American Metropolis
Dr. Wilbur Zelinsky, professor emeritus of geography, and Dr. Stephen A. Matthews, senior research associate, associate professor of demography and sociology (adjunct geography), and director of the GIA Core, received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to study the changing religious and demographic landscape in Chicago. The researchers will conduct a telephone survey of a sample of congregations, and map approximately 5,100 places of worship. Data will be analyzed to discover complex interrelationships among congregations, places of worship, and neighborhoods.
Police Intervention and Repeat Offending in Domestic Assault
Dr. Richard Felson, professor of crime, law and justice and sociology, received funding for this project from the Data Resources Program: Funding for the Analysis of Existing Data, National Institute of Justice.
Racial Burden of Chronic Disease
Dr. Mark D. Hayward, director of the Social Science Research Institute, director of the Population Research Institute and professor of sociology and demography, and Dr. Robert Schoen, Hoffman Professor of Family Sociology and Demography, received funding from the National Institute on Aging for two years for this project, which will use the Health and Retirement Survey to develop demographic models of chronic disease experience quantifying the scope of race/ethnic disparities and the lifecycle processes through which disparities arise.
Rural Children Living in Poverty: Risk and Protective Mechanisms Within and Across the Individual, Family and Community Context in the First Three Years of Life
This study, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, will follow 1,400 children from selected rural counties in North Carolina and in Pennsylvania from infancy through the first three years of the children's lives in order to gauge their biological, emotional and social development. PRI researchers are involved in two of the study's five projects. Dr. Ann C. Crouter, professor of human development and family studies and director of the Center for Work and Family Research, and Dr. Stacy Rogers, assistant professor of sociology and human development and family studies, will examine the impact that parents' changing occupational conditions have on family dynamics and children's psychosocial functioning. Dr. Linda M. Burton, professor of human development and family studies and sociology, will direct a project that will appraise community characteristics and their effect on families' and children's lives.
Rural Development in the Era of Welfare Reform
Dr. Diane K. McLaughlin, associate professor of rural sociology and demography, received funding for three years from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for this project using administrative data on TANF receipt from the Mississippi Department of Human Services to examine exits from and returns to TANF. A unique aspect of this project is that individual recipients are linked with local community data to assess the influence of community context on TANF exits and returns. This is a subcontract with Mississippi State University, Domenico Parisi, P.I.
Welfare Reform and Migration: Moving to Benefits/Moving from Restrictions
Dr. Gordon F. De Jong, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography and director of the Graduate Program in Demography, and Dr. Deborah Graefe, PRI research associate, received funding from the Census Bureau and NWU to perform data preparation and initial state-level analyses in a longer-term project to determine whether devolution of welfare policy based on the 1996 welfare reform act has created "welfare magnet" states, and whether welfare disincentive states with more restrictive policies have resulted in increased out-migration of welfare poor families.
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