INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH

Obstetricians are more likely to give Black women unnecessary cesarean sections, putting those women at higher risk for serious complications like ruptured surgical wounds. That’s the conclusion of a new report of nearly one million births in 68 hospitals in New Jersey, one of the largest studies to tackle the subject. The additional operations on Black patients were more likely to happen when hospitals had no scheduled C-sections, suggesting that racial bias and financial incentives played a role in the doctors' decisions, according to the researchers. “If Black moms are better candidates for C-section, then you should see them getting sent for C-section more even when there is limited capacity,” said IPR economist Molly Schnell, one of the study authors.

Gun violence is top of mind for many parents this week after a 14-year-old allegedly killed two students and two teachers at his Georgia high school. A new study in JAMA Pediatrics suggests one way to move forward on gun safety in this country and the role pediatricians can play. Here & Now spoke with IPR associate Rinad Beidas, the study’s lead author about the study and conversations pediatricians can have with parents about gun safety. “They wanted to meet the parents where they were at and just have a conversation about the importance of making sure that any firearms that the child could have access to were secured in a way that the child could not access them,” Beidas said.

"Former President Donald Trump was six minutes into his speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13 when a lone gunman perched on a nearby rooftop shot and injured him and two others and killed a fourth man. The assassination attempt was the culmination of years of warnings from elected officials that they faced an escalation of threats of violence. Our interviews with elected officials and other researchers’ surveys also show that threats of violence can have significant consequences for democracy since victims may be more likely to shy away from controversial policies, meet less often with constituents, not seek higher office or retire from politics," writes IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong and her colleagues.

"Few issues are more important to Harris’s chances in November than reproductive rights, which also include in-vitro fertilization and contraception. Since Dobbs, pro-choice advocates have scored victories on ballot initiatives in states such as Kansas, Michigan, Kentucky, and Ohio, signalling the strength of the Democrats’ case. In Wisconsin, where four of the past six Presidential races have been decided by less than one percentage point, polls show that abortion is the top issue for Democrats," reports journalism professor and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

In the immediate aftermath of the failed attempt on Donald Trump’s life, pundits and politicians rushed to proclaim that they knew exactly how the awful event would affect American politics and the election. The history of failed assassination attempts in the United States and abroad though offers only the murkiest indication of the path forward. “Would-be assassins are chaos agents more than agents that direct the course of history,” says economist and IPR associate Benjamin Jones, who has studied the effects of political assassination attempts over the past 150 years.

"This will be the first major campaign cycle with the use of AI. And I think it will be a testing ground for how AI will be used by campaigns, by candidates, as well as malign actors whether they be China, Russia or domestic actors who want to interfere with the election. And so, I think whatever lessons they take will be actually be very impactful for future elections," communications and policy scholar and IPR associate Erik Nisbet said. In a country with sharp divisions, Nisbet thinks AI will only make the division worse.

Five scholars have capitalized on new measurement techniques to identify partisan sectarian voters, a category that they said “does indeed predict antidemocratic tendencies.” In their recent paper “Partisan Antipathy and the Erosion of Democratic Norms” IPR social psychologist Eli Finkel, James Druckman of the University of Rochester, Alexander Landry of Stanford, Jay Van Bavel of N.Y.U. and Rick H. Hoyle of Duke made the case that earlier studies of partisan hostility used ratings of the two parties on a scale of 0 (cold) to 100 (very warm) but that that measure failed to show a linkage between such hostility and antidemocratic views.

"At the national level, we need to talk more openly about men’s mental health and spread awareness that while men can be an important source of support to their partners during pregnancy and early parenthood, they also may need support of their own. ... Fathers are central, not peripheral, to their families. When we fail to take into account the impact they have on mothers and children, we miss opportunities to promote the well-being of the whole family.," writes pediatrician and IPR associate Craig Garfield and Tova Walsh.

In her soon-to-be-released book "Children of a Troubled Time: Growing Up With Racism in Trump’s America," sociologist Margaret Hagerman examines the White children who felt emboldened to be openly bigoted while Donald Trump was president. Hagerman’s research indicates that kids adopt racist ideology even if parents avoid talking about race. A host of other studies backs her up: One line of research going back decades shows that children recognize race as early as six months and develop racial biases by ages 3 to 5. IPR psychologist Sylvia Perry and her colleagues summarized a number of studies on the topic in a 2022 paper titled “Will Talking About Race Make My Child Racist?” They concluded that when parents avoided discussing race, greater racial bias, not less, resulted.

A new study by IPR economist Elisa Jácome finds that "as a group, immigrants have had lower incarceration rates than US-born for 150 years." Compared to the US-born, incarceration rates of immigrants have declined since 1960. "One of the things we can do given the data that we have is differentiate immigrants between those who are citizens and those who are non-citizens," Jácome told CNN. "When we do that, we find very similar patterns ... in terms of immigrants today being significantly less likely to be incarcerated than the U.S.-born."

For the first time in 10 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved updates to the WIC program’s food package. WIC users will have a larger allowance to spend on fruits and vegetables at their discretion and expanded options for whole grains, dairy and dairy substitutes to account for cultural preferences and allergies. But for a food aid program, some say restrictions to promote nutrition come with costs and do not always promote healthy eating. “I think it’s overly simplistic to think that restrictions will really move the needle on healthy eating,” said IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach.

In 2018, IPR psychologist Sylvia Perry began experiments in her lab looking at conversations between White parents and their school-aged children to understand prejudice.. She brought in nearly 90 White parents and their 8- to 12-year-old children to discuss kid-appropriate situations dealing with prejudice and racism — and she measured whether those chats had any effects on the racial biases. The results were clear. “An overwhelming majority of them, their data points are showing a reduction [in bias]. It’s a very large effect,” Perry said

Northwestern University researchers are kicking off a study to measure the accuracy and usefulness of at-home tests for lead in water while exploring how access to testing influences neighbors’ actions to protect themselves from lead. The group is recruiting 100 households for the study from Chicago's Southeast Side and Evanston. Accurate at-home tests can speed up that process, helping neighbors more quickly shift to other sources of water and hold their local officials or landlords accountable if they discover high lead levels, IPR anthropologist Sera Young said. “My hope is that people are empowered to make well-informed decisions,” she said.

Along with falsely insisting that he did not lose the 2020 election, former President Donald J. Trump has promoted a related set of theories centered on one question: What would the world have looked like had he stayed in office? “People already grapple with how to hold elected officials accountable,” said IPR political scientist Tabitha Bonilla, who has researched campaign promises and accountability. “And what is super interesting here is that there’s no way to hold someone accountable at all, because there’s no way to measure any of this.”

Crime overall is falling nationwide. But when it comes to homicides, Chicago’s numbers are not declining as quickly as New York and Los Angeles. Why isn't Chicago’s homicide rate falling as fast? “The comparison between L.A., New York and Chicago is complicated,” says IPR director and sociologist Andrew Papachristos. “Los Angeles made a lot of police reforms that Chicago is just trying to do and New York never quite had the gang situation that L.A. and Chicago had."

The argument that the Russian president cannot be stopped so there’s no point in using American taxpayer dollars against him marks a new stage in the Republican Party’s growing acceptance of Russian expansionism in the age of Donald Trump. The GOP has been softening its stance on Russia ever since Trump won the 2016 election following Russian hacking of his Democratic opponents. Some of this shift is because Putin is holding himself up as an international champion of conservative Christian values and the GOP is growing increasingly skeptical of overseas entanglements. “The goal of the Soviet Union was to be the beacon of left ideas,” IPR associate research professor Olga Kamenchuk told the Associated Press. “Russia is now the beacon of conservative ideas.”

Michael Smerconish of CNN discussed the influential role that Taylor Swift might play in the 2024 presidential elections, due to the power and platform that the singers holds. Smerconish stated that a major concern is the amount of data that Swift may have access to given her wildly successful Eras Tour, as well as her social media presence, which could be instrumental to developing micro-targeting strategies. Healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite spoke to CNN about the impact of celebrity endorsements on campaign outcomes and the role Taylor Swift might play in the 2024 presidential elections. “[Swift] could have a very large effect on enthusiasm in this election,” Garthwaite said. Garthwaite said Swift could have a similar impact as Oprah Winfrey in 2008, who he estimates helped get Barack Obama 1 million votes because of her endorsement.

In the summer of 2020, America witnessed the death of George Floyd, bringing conversations about race to the forefront. IPR developmental psychologist Onnie Rogers and her colleagues launched an online study in late 2020 to investigate whether parents were having conversations about race with their children. They find that while most Black and White parents talked to their kids about race, these conversations had key differences in content. “Promoting more race conversations among families is necessary but not sufficient,” Rogers writes. “Yes, we should continue to encourage parents to talk about race. But more importantly, we should encourage parents to acknowledge racism and name the persistent harm of racial injustice.”

In an interview with CNN, Medill dean and IPR Associate Charles Whitaker discussed how the media should report on former President Donald Trump and whether they should censor his remarks. Whitaker argued that it was important to continue to cover Trump in the media, because he is the leading Republican presidential candidate. Whitaker says Trump’s comments could be contextualized and fact-checked. "We have an obligation to preserve what is happening for posterity,” Whitaker said. “And we can't abdicate that responsibility just because we find an individual or their views odious."

Pediatrician and IPR associate Nia Heard-Garris finds that minority children face disparities in healthcare in the United States. Her research revealed widespread patterns of inequitable treatment across all pediatric specialties, from neonatal care to end of life care. When it comes to pain management, Black and Hispanic youth are less likely to get the pain medicine they need. “We think a lot of these disparities and inequities that we see are driven by structural racism and implicit bias and other factors that are pervasive, not only in our society, but also in our healthcare systems,” Heard-Garris said.

Since 2016, the Democratic Party has shifted the way that they approach immigration and the immigration policies that they support. Not long ago, Democrats were in favor of immigration enforcement policies, including strict border security and deportations. However, today many Democrats feel uncomfortable voicing their support for these policies, instead opting to support looser immigration regulations. Illegal immigration has surged during Biden’s presidency because of the shift, and polls suggest it could be a problem for him in the upcoming election. According to research co-authored by computational linguist and IPR associate Rob Voigt, Democrats spoke more positively about immigration in 2020 than any political party in American history.

The mental health needs of Black and Hispanic girls often goes unmet, but Working on Womanhood (WOW) is working to change that. WOW, an after-school program, supports Black and Hispanic female students’ mental health with a focus on individual and group therapy. The program operates in Waukegan, Illinois, and several other school districts around the country, and research shows that it works. IPR political scientist Sally Nuamah said that the tendency of adults to view Black youth as more adult-like than fellow White students and the students’ own positive behavior can mask their needs. “They are perceived as resilient and possessing grit,” Nuamah said. “This obscures the real mental health needs of students of color and perpetuates institutionally racist policies because these students are not perceived as needing the same resources.”

Just ahead of a state bill allowing individuals to list their genders as ‘X,” on their driver’s license or other forms of state identification, Northwestern Medicine will allow their patients to mark their legal sex as ‘X’ on medical records. Patients who elect to have X on their legal documents hold a wide variety of gender identities, each with unique implications for medical care. Health researcher and IPR associate Lauren Beach says this can be addressed by asking their patients more questions to achieve a fuller picture of their medical profile. "Patients with X will have many different needs, but one need they're all going to have is to have been treated with dignity and respect across the board,” Beach said.

When asked, among other global health and development leaders, what his new year’s wish was, IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade answered paid family leave in the United States. According to McDade, the United States is one of just seven nations that does not have a paid family leave policy, and the only wealthy country of the seven. “Paid family leave is good for babies and their families, and it can go a long way toward reducing societal inequalities in maternal and infant health outcomes,” McDade said.

Every day in court, people act as their own attorney, but primarily in civil cases. But, Robert Crimo III, the alleged Highland Park parade shooter, plans to represent himself at his February criminal court trial, after he dismissed his public defenders Monday. If found guilty at trial, Crimo could be sentenced to hundreds of years or life in prison. Director of Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics and IPR associate Lori Ann Post, who has studied decades of mass shootings and the shooters, said via email Crimo's decision to represent himself is, "very consistent with psychopathy and narcissism."

Chicago is home to many different parks, some with historical significance, such as Indian Boundary Park. The name of the park, as well as various aspects of its design don’t tell the full story of the park’s history. Indian Boundary Park is just one example of many areas affected by the U.S. government’s “Federal Indian Policy,” which displaced many Native American communities. The fieldhouse in the park was erected in 1929 and includes a stoic relief carving of a Native American wearing a Plains-style headdress above the front entrance. Historian and IPR associate Doug Kiel said these relics reinforce false narratives about Native people and their removal in the public consciousness by romanticizing these histories.

In the Chicago Tribune, sociologist and African American studies researcher and IPR associate Mary Pattillo reflected on her experience teaching incarcerated students through Northwestern’s Prison Education Program (NPEP). This month, 16 men were the first cohort of incarcerated students to graduate from NPEP and the first to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from a top ten university. “I don't minimize the devastating harm that some of my students have caused others. They surely don't either. I simply want to portray them in their fullness and in their contexts, as humans, with interests and stories,” Pattillo writes. “Now, with college degrees in hand, they are looking forward, not backward.”

More than 300,000 Americans have been shot over the past decade, writes IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos in the Washington Post. However, recent research suggests that tacking gun violence within the next decade may be a very real possibility through community violence intervention (CVI) programs. CVI has increasingly become a common approach to gun violence in cities across the U.S., with Chicago quickly becoming a leader in the movement, housing more than 20 CVI organizations that serve 37 of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods. “Recent research has uncovered very real hope that getting gun violence under control is not only possible but also within our reach in the next decade,” Papachristos explains.

According to a new study by community health scholar and IPR associate Joe Feinglass, new mothers in states with higher mandated paid family and medical leave have a lower chance of experiencing postpartum depression and are more likely to breastfeed their children. Breastfeeding offers many health benefits, such as better GI function and brain development and babies and a lower risk of cancer for mothers. The study used data gathered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compare pregnancy outcomes in 43 states, taking into account each state’s parental leave policies. The United States is one of only a few wealthy countries without federally mandated paid parental leave. “By increasing mothers’ ability to breastfeed and reducing postpartum-depressive symptoms, strong state paid family and medical leave laws provide a major boost to the health of postpartum women and infants,” Feinglass said.

Beginning last spring, volunteers anticipated a monumental upcoming abortion decision and worked to persuade half a million Ohioans to support a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights. This question appeared on the November ballot, deciding whether to neutralize a law, passed with the help of Ohio Republicans—now blocked while being reviewed by the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court—which prohibits almost all abortions after about six weeks, without exceptions for rape or incest. Ohio has historically been dominated by Republics, meaning the decision to support a constitutional amendment that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” is noteworthy. This amendment allows the states to restrict abortion only after the baby is viable, unless the doctor believes an abortion to be necessary to protect the mother’s life or health. “What started as a grassroots initiative with an uncertain outcome turned into the biggest victory for abortion rights since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, in June 2022, overturned the rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade,” writes journalism professor and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, American schoolchildren lost an average of three quarters of a year of education, with the most underprivileged children losing even more. IPR economist Jonathan Guryan and University of Chicago professor Jens Ludwig argue that high-dosage tutoring during the school day is necessary to make up for these learning losses. If we fail to address this issue, Guryan and Ludwig argue that the country risks losing out on the potential of a generation of 50 million students. “While schools need more time and more money to implement and expand high-dosage tutoring in an effective manner, they also need to be held accountable,” Guryan and Ludwig write.

According to a US Department of Agriculture report, food insecurity among families with children rose significantly last year after falling in 2021. Children experienced some level of food insecurity in 3.3 million households during 2022, which is 1 million families higher than 2021 the report found. Additionally, poverty, particularly among children, rose in 2022. Some experts point to the loss of federal assistance, which ended after the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason behind the change. “There’s just a lot of precarity in the economy still,” IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach said. “Food is one of the few places that families kind of have the ability to cut back because you can’t say, ‘Let me pay half of my mortgage this month or pay half of my rent.’”

In the midst of the Israel-Palestine conflict, conservative influencers have taken to social media to speculate about the threat of a terror attack, encouraging their audience to prepare by avoiding major cities and buying guns. The posts show how quickly the latest bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas has upended online political debate thousands of miles away, and how it’s being used by political figures to push certain agendas and issues. According to Kellogg social psychologist and IPR associate Billy Brady, threat warnings often gain higher views because social media apps have an inherent bias towards emotional posts of fear and outrage. “We’re all trying to make sense of some uncertainty, and certain political actors are going to try to leverage that to try something like fear-mongering,” Brady said.

In their Reset podcast, WBEZ Chicago discussed the role of misinformation in the wake of the Israel and Palestine war. Psychologist and IPR associate David Rapp said that exposure to inaccuracies about current events can result in people being confused about what is true, doubting what they already know, and relying on incorrect information to inform beliefs and actions. “Exposures to inaccurate information are pervasive and if we’re not prepared and thinking deeply about it, we can have change in how we think and our decision-making, which is a real problem,” Rapp said.

In a new study, Black Americans expressed concerns about how they are depicted in the media, with a majority of respondents saying that they have noticed racist and negative depictions of Black Americans and, as well as a lack of effort to cover broad segments of their community. According to the Pew Research Center, four out of five adults say that they observe racist or racially insensitive portrayals of their race in the news often or sometimes. “It’s not surprising at all,” said Charles Whitaker, Medill dean and IPR associate. “There’s a feeling that Black Americans are often depicted as perpetrators or victims of crime, and there are no nuances in the coverage.”

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2021, almost 60% of high school girls in the U.S. felt persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, nearly 20% had experienced sexual violence, and 25% had made a suicide plan. A recent study has shown that a Chicago-based program could prove to be a model that can help girls across the nation. In 2011, Youth Guidance, an education nonprofit, launched Working on Womanhood (WOW) in 11 Chicago public high schools to help Black and Latina girls with high levels of emotional trauma, but little mental health support. During the school year, WOW counselors meet weekly with small groups of girls and utilize techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy to teach the girls to use healthy coping skills to deal with their trauma. IPR economist Jonathan Guryan and his colleagues began a study in 2017 to evaluate the effectiveness of this program. Guryan found that after receiving WOW counseling and mentoring, girls experienced fewer symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

Later this year, 350 Chicago-area households will receive water testing kits as part of Northwestern study made possible by a $3 million federal grant. Researchers behind this study plan to begin an investigation over the course of several years by instructing residents to test immediately for lead, and eventually for other contaminants, such as PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. IPR anthropologist Sera Young is one of the researchers leading this study. "Information is power, and these tests make invisible issues visible," Young said. "We hope that families and organizations can use the tests in their daily activities to understand where the problems are in Chicago, and that policymakers can take action based on the information they generate."

In August, gymnast Simone Biles earned her eighth US Gymnastics all-around title, becoming the oldest women to achieve this feat, as well as breaking the record for most all-around titles by any male or female gymnast. In a sport in which most athletes age out during or after college, Biles is challenging expectations by continuing well after most typical gymnasts, to great success. “She has changed the narrative about who gets to be a champion, and who gets to excel at the thing they love,” IPR developmental psychologist Rogers said. “Beyond gymnastics, Biles offers us something else to embrace: the lesson that we have the power to change restrictive narratives that do not serve us.”

U.S. President Joe Biden is tapping C. Kirabo Jackson, an IPR labor economist whose research advocates robust public spending on schools, to fill out his three-member Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), according to a White House official. The selection suggests public education will be a key area of focus for Biden's brain-trust ahead of a 2024 re-election bid expected to turn on the strength of the economy.

If the Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 decision in June ordering an end to race conscious college admissions leads to less diversity among the graduates of these schools (and evidence from California, where voters banned affirmative action in 1996, suggests it will), the talent pipeline that companies rely on will also become less diverse. “Firms allocate specific numbers of interview slots—and in many cases, offers—to each campus before students’ qualifications are ever reviewed,” management and organizations professor and IPR associate Lauren Rivera told Forbes. “So competition is systematically skewed toward students at elite institutions. Everyone else is left fighting for the scraps.”

"In addition to the legal challenges the plan faced, prominent Republicans — who cheered the ruling — have argued that the concept of student debt relief runs counter to our country’s deepest commitments. As Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted, for example, we should not require taxpayers to “pay off $300 billion of other people’s debts … It’s un-American.” But history reveals that such claims are false. For much of the country’s history, Americans have pressed their governments for relief from debts — and often, legislators granted it," writes IPR political scientist Chloe Thurston.

The U.S. Supreme Court put a final stake in affirmative action policies in college admissions, ruling that the consideration of an applicants’ race at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is unconstitutional. Now, selective colleges across the country will have to rethink how to maintain or foster racially diverse student populations. WBEZ’s Lisa Philip interviewed IPR sociologist Anthony Chen about his initial reaction to the ruling.

Changes to the national school lunch program in the last decade that cracked down on sodium and fat content in school meals and required more fruits and vegetables could have reduced children’s likelihood of becoming overweight, according to a new research paper. “These results suggest that improvements in the nutritional content of school lunches have been largely successful in reversing the previously negative relationship between school lunches and childhood obesity,” IPR graduate research assistant Therese Bonomo and IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach concluded.

"Now, more than ever, the country needs violence prevention infrastructure—a system of services, professionals and organizations that focus on holistically providing community safety and preventing gun violence. In our effort to “do something” about gun violence, however, we must prioritize the health and safety of workers on the front lines of the U.S.’s gun violence epidemic," writes IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos.

Chick-fil-A drew fierce criticism this week from conservatives calling out the fast-food chain for its diversity, equity and inclusion policy and questioning the hiring of an executive to be in charge of such efforts. The backlash has made Chick-fil-A one of the latest companies to draw public condemnation over “culture war” flash points like L.G.B.T.Q. rights or seeking fair treatment for racial or ethnic groups that have been historically underrepresented. Kellogg social psychologist and IPR associate Ivuoma Onyeador said that she believes conservatives have conflated D.E.I. efforts with support for other social justice movements, such as the Black Lives Matter Movement. “Because they’re against D.E.I. policies or ‘wokeism,’ they’re struggling with the connection between Chick-fil-A, as a company that they see as on their side, that is also engaging in this other work,” Onyeador said.

"While stereotypes and stigma surrounding disability undoubtedly play a role in the continuing marginalization of disabled children and their families, perceived resource constraints are also at the heart of disability discrimination in U.S. schools. When Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, it mandated that public school districts must educate disabled students no matter how extensive or costly their support needs. To offset the expense of doing so, Congress set a goal of funding 40% of the cost of special education," writes Lauren Rivera, management and organizations professor and IPR associate.

In a country where mass shootings and gun violence have become daily occurrences, a fatal shooting in Antioch on April 12 during an argument over the use of a leaf blower stood out for its triviality. But while shocking, the deadly dispute between neighbors was by no means unique in recent weeks, when guns have been used to end petty grievances: Knocking on a stranger's door. Pulling into the wrong driveway. Accidentally getting into the wrong car. The perception of danger can be colored by factors such as racial bias, according to IPR fellow Sylvia Perry, "In the United States, people perhaps are experiencing a lot of divisiveness and a lack of trust in one another. I think these things can be exacerbated by biases as well," she said. "So in the Ralph Yarl case, I think that biases may have played a role."

The state legislature in Iowa, with the support of the Republican supermajority, was poised to approve some of the nation’s harshest restrictions on SNAP. The measure is part of a broader national crackdown on SNAP, the federal program at the heart of the nation’s welfare system. The proposed legislation was not a homegrown effort but the product of a network of conservative think tanks pushing similar SNAP restrictions in Kentucky, Kansas, Wisconsin and other states. “There are pockets where you are seeing a movement toward more restrictions to kick people off SNAP,” IPR Director and Economist Diane Schanzenbach said. “But the SNAP program is really well-designed. It’s effective and efficient, and it does a tremendous amount of good. Generally, proposals to change it usually are going to make it worse.”

The state legislature in Iowa, with the support of the Republican supermajority, was poised to approve some of the nation’s harshest restrictions on SNAP. The measure is part of a broader national crackdown on SNAP, the federal program at the heart of the nation’s welfare system. The proposed legislation was not a homegrown effort but the product of a network of conservative think tanks pushing similar SNAP restrictions in Kentucky, Kansas, Wisconsin and other states. “There are pockets where you are seeing a movement toward more restrictions to kick people off SNAP,” IPR Director and Economist Diane Schanzenbach said. “But the SNAP program is really well-designed. It’s effective and efficient, and it does a tremendous amount of good. Generally, proposals to change it usually are going to make it worse.”

"Early on in the mayoral campaign, Paul Vallas seized on the violence that has spiked in Chicago, and across the country, during the pandemic. In a recent poll, sixty-three per cent of Chicagoans said that they feel unsafe in daily life. Vallas, who credits the four police officers in his family for inspiring his public-safety policies, has pledged to fill the department’s seventeen hundred vacancies. At the same time, he needs to draw in voters who want major reforms in a department that is currently operating under a federal consent decree and has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle complaints of brutality," reports Peter Slevin.

Earlier this year, millions of Americans got a notice: Your food budget is about to be cut, potentially by hundreds of dollars a month. The notices signaled the coming end of a federal increase in food stamps that started in the early days of the pandemic, when unemployment spiked and lawmakers feared that hunger would, too. The cuts come at a particularly bad time for low-income Americans. Grocery prices increased 10 percent over the past year, according to data released this week. IPR director and economist Diane Schanzenbach has found that these effects have already come into play. Her research shows that food insecurity rose more quickly in the states that revoked emergency benefits, compared to the states that continued to offer the benefits.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the fate of affirmative action in college admissions this June. In the meantime, Illinois colleges are considering how to maintain equity and diversity in admissions without it. Anthony Chen, an IPR sociologist who is working on a book about the history of affirmative action in higher education and spoke to WBEZ about his findings. This issue has become increasingly controversial in recent years. “Few issues really pique the interest of suburban homeowners like the issue of college admissions. A lot of Americans who are living in the suburbs dream of sending their kids to the best college or university they can get into,” Chen said.” And so the thought that their kids might not get a fair shake for whatever reason really riles them up.”

Chicago’s mayoral runoff could be swayed by executives at Citadel and Madison Dearborn Partners as well as the country’s largest teachers unions. Paul Vallas, the city’s ex-schools chief who pledged to be tough on crime and restaff the police force, is backed by personal donations from executives at hedge fund Citadel and private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners. Meanwhile, Brandon Johnson, the Cook County commissioner and the only candidate who didn’t vow to rebuild the depleted police force but denied plans to defund it, has collected $4.2 million, at least half from labor groups. IPR political scientist Tabitha Bonilla said that Brandon Johnson will have an advantage collecting votes that had previously gone to former mayor Lori Lightfoot in the South and West areas of Chicago. “He has this experience with unions, he’s worked as a teacher, he talks very much about neighborhood relationships with police departments,” Bonilla said.

When it comes to how Americans view our nation’s progress toward becoming a more equal society, there’s a strong misperception that we’re doing better than reality suggests. For example, a 2019 paper found that many underestimate the severity of racial economic inequality in this country—by a lot. “We’re invested in a belief that the world is just, that society is operating as it should, that all of our successes are due to our hard work,” said Kellogg social psychologist and IPR associate Ivy Onyeador, who worked on the study. “And so, the idea that that is not the case for certain groups of people is very threatening to the very idea of what America is supposed to be, what it means to be American,” explained Onyeador.

In the New Yorker, IPR African American studies scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes that Nikole Hannah-Jones’s documentary series the “1619 Project” offers a damning portrait of American racism, but its emphasis on the past at times obscures the complexity of the present. “In a society that still entertains the idea that Black social immobility is self-induced, Hannah-Jones’s determination to make slavery central to how we understand the nation’s history and the marginalization and oppression of ordinary Black people is welcome. But in her efforts to assert that slavery is the driving explanation for the particular problems that Black people face today, it is not always clear what the assertion adds to her argument,” she writes.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is angling for re-election, with eight opponents seeking to replace her. But Chicagoans may not give Lightfoot that chance. Four years ago, running as an outsider with no political experience, she edged her way into a runoff and then won 73% of the vote, becoming the first Black woman to lead the city. This time, shunned by many of her former supporters, many of whom are now backing other candidates, she is an outsider in a different way. A recent Harris Poll found that only 36% of likely voters believe that Lightfoot deserves to be re-elected.

Starting in March, emergency Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) allotments will end. Since early in the pandemic, families in Illinois have received emergency SNAP allotments on top of what they typically received. While benefits will return to their normal levels, grocery store prices and inflation remain high. Many food pantry directors and those who use food pantries are worried about the effects of these allotments ending. IPR Director and economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach believes that the end of these emergency SNAP allotments could cause hunger in families who are struggling economically. “Folks have been getting the maximum benefit for many months, but yet they’re still just really financially fragile,” Schanzenbach said. “Many of them are just on the border between experiencing hunger and not.”

Words related to therapy have become increasingly prevalent in workplaces, school, and online. Recently, they have made their way into a new arena as well: dating. Dating comes with its own dictionary, a collection of buzzwords like “breadcrumbing,” “zombie-ing” and, of course, “ghosting.” But in recent years, psychology terms like “love bombing,” “gaslighting” and “trauma bonding” have also wedged their way into the lexicon. The proliferation of these terms among daters represents a distinct shift. “In the ’50s, or even the ’80s, it would be hard to imagine that saying ‘I see my therapist regularly’ would have status,” social psychologist and IPR associate Eli Finkel said.

The College Board released the curriculum for their new Advanced Placement class in African American Studies on February 1, the first day of Black History Month. Controversy has surrounded the course, as two weeks prior, the Florida Department of Education rejected the course citing concerns that it did not have sufficient educational value and it went against Florida Law. Additionally, Florida commissioner of education, Manny Diaz Jr., released a flyer of complaints from the pilot version of the class. The revised curriculum reflected these complaints, and the revised curriculum cut several units. In light of these changes, IPR African American Studies scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor spoke to UCLA history professor Robin D. G. Kelley about the history of African American studies.

Representative Ilhan Omar was removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee after a Republican-controlled House vote. Republicans accused Omar to being both antisemitic and anti-American, while some Democrats accused Republicans of a racist double standard, due to their lack of outrage when Republican officials make similar comments. Omar says she will continue to speak up for families seeking justice. "I think there are important consequences to her ability to represent her constituents. This is silencing her voice in her committee work, and I think particularly having a Somali refugee on a foreign affairs committee is important because she's bringing to the table a perspective that other people are not going to be bringing,” IPR political scientist Tabitha Bonilla said.

The number of people using Twitter has dropped by almost 9% in the United States after Elon Musk took over the platform, according to a recent study by the COVID States Project, co-authored by IPR political scientist James Druckman. The number of Americans using Twitter dropped from 32.4% in October 2022 to 29.5% as of January 2023. Most of the users who stopped using Twitter were Democrats, who quit at higher rates than Republicans or Independents. Unsurprisingly, people who identified as Democrats were less trusting of Musk. Forty-eight percent said they do not trust him “at all” to do what’s right, and another 28% said they trusted him “not too much.”

A new report revealed that half of mass shooters are motivated by personal, domestic, or work-related stressors. The report, released by the Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center on Wednesday, examined 173 targeted attacks carried out by 180 perpetrators between 2016 and 2020 in public or semipublic locations. About 93% of the shooters endured at least one significant stressor, such as a demotion at work, homelessness, or divorce, within five years of their attack, and 77% of them experienced this event within a year of their attack. Director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics and IPR associate Lori Ann Post studies mass killings as a public health issue and stated that mass shooters older than the age of 26 tend to be motivated because they are retaliating to a perceived loss or failure. “The older ones seem to have left home; they’ve separated from their parents, but then they self-implode and destroy their life,” she said. “They want revenge, they’re disgruntled, they want payback.”

According to the National Survey of Children’s Health, 250 preschool students in the U.S. are suspended or expelled each day. However, the rate of expulsion is disparately higher among Black male students. Half of the students expelled from preschool in 2021 were Black boys, despite the fact that they make up only 20 percent of enrolled students. A September 2021 study published in the journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences by Terri Sabol, Onnie Rogers, and Laurie Wakschlag found that teachers tend to complain more about Black students, particularly Black boys. These teachers identified Black students’ behavior as more problematic, compared with white students, the authors wrote, even though these differences “were not seen in directly observed behavior in the laboratory.”

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order banning the term “Latinx” within hours of being sworn into office. It was one of seven orders signed by Sanders, a Republican, right after taking the oath. The other ones focused on prohibiting Arkansas schools from teaching critical race theory, budgeting and spending as well as other government affairs. IPR social policy expert Tabitha Bonilla was surprised that Sanders made this move so early in her term. “That sets the tone for the type of governance that you want to enact, of what you think is the priority, and the types of decision-making you'll do at an office,” Bonilla said.

While most of the country saw sharp declines in gun violence during the early 1990s, impoverished neighborhoods remained dangerous. From 2004 to 2021, deaths by gun violence increased by 45.5. percent. The impact is disproportionate, with Black men dying of firearm homicide at a rate 22.5 times higher than other Americans. IPR sociology Andrew Papachristos finds that most gun violence that occurs in American cities happens in poorer neighborhoods among small groups of individuals that know each other.

Children who spent their formative years in the bleach-everything era will certainly have different microbiomes. The members of the so-called microbiome are crucial for digesting our food, training the immune system, even greasing the wheels of cognitive function; there does not seem to be a bodily system that these tiny tenants do not in some way affect. These microbe-human dialogues begin in infancy, and the first three or so years of life are absolutely pivotal: Bacteria must colonize babies, then the two parties need to get into physiological sync. Major disruptions during this time “can throw the system out of whack,” says Katherine Amato, a biological anthropologist and IPR associate, and raise a kid’s risk of developing allergies, asthma, obesity, and other chronic conditions later in life.

There isn’t just one story about women during the pandemic; there are many. For college-educated women, the tale is framed by the safeguards of privilege. Their birth rate remained steady at the start of the pandemic, before increasing substantially in January of 2021 and jumping about 6 percent relative to their pre-COVID trend by year’s end. Thanks to generous government-aid programs and a booming stock market, savings and net wealth improved during the pandemic—in all income groups, but especially among more affluent households. This extra money may help explain the baby boom in the laptop class, IPR economist Hannes Schwandt, one of the authors of the fertility paper, said.

Holidays and stress seem to go hand in hand. To cope, many people often steal hours from their sleep to pack in all the cooking, shopping, gift wrapping, parties and family time. “Even a night or two of short sleep can have short term effects on your health, mood and wellbeing,” said Kristen Knutson, neurologist and IPR associate, in an email. “You will enjoy the holidays more if you can protect your sleep time—and you may actually get more done if you aren’t tired and inefficient from sleep deprivation, she said.

According to a new study, by community health scholar and IPR associate Joe Feinglass, the number of children being seen in emergency rooms for suicide related causes has been steadily increasing, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, used data from hospitals in Illinois. The researchers looked at the number of children ages 5 to 19 who sought help for suicide in emergency departments between January 2016 and June 2021.

“Water crises are unfolding around the globe quietly, often unnoticed. "Invisible" experiences related to too much, too little, or poor-quality water—meals not cooked, hands unwashed, nights spent thirsty—must be counted to accurately understand water-related suffering,” writes IPR anthropologist Sera Young. “Water insecurity will increase in frequency and severity as infrastructure crumbles, water use increases, weather disasters abound, and climate change makes dry places drier and wet places wetter.”

A new study, co-authored by economist and IPR associate Joseph Ferrie, finds that individuals who were exposed to lead during their childhood are at a greater risk of experiencing symptoms of dementia earlier and having reduced cognitive abilities compared to others their age. Although scientists have long known that children and adults who are exposed to lead have poorer cognitive and educational outcomes, few studies have investigated the longer-term consequences. The research, published in Science Advances, revealed that people who lived in cities with lead-contaminated water as children had worse baseline cognitive functioning—a measure of their ability to learn, process information, and reason—at age 72, compared with those who did not.

A week before the midterm elections, Oprah Winfrey endorsed John Fetterman, who is running against Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s Senate race. Some hold Winfrey responsible for Oz’s rise to fame by bringing him on her popular TV show, but some experts question whether her opinion will be a difference-maker. “I don’t think she has that same amount of influence anymore. She’s still obviously influential, but she’s been out of the public eye,” healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite said.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has enjoyed a supermajority Democratic control over the General Assembly for the past four years, passing many major initiatives for the state. Pritzker is going up against state Sen. Darren Bailey in the upcoming elections. Also on the ballot are several other hot topics, including a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to collective bargaining for unions. “A big important state like Illinois enshrining this right to their constitution sends a signal across the country that the right to bargain collectively is a fundamental right,” IPR political scientist Dan Galvin said.

The Supreme Court is currently in the process of hearing arguments in two cases that are likely to dramatically alter the way that race is considered in the college admissions process, possibly even banning the use of race as a factor. While the Supreme Court has supported the use of race as a factor in college applications for almost 50 years, the new conservative supermajority of the Court may cause a different outcome in these cases. There are two lawsuits pending before the Court at present, including Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students For Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. “The point of affirmative action in higher education is not to stop discrimination on the basis of race. It’s to improve the quality of education for all students at a school, by helping to diversify the student body,” IPR sociologist Anthony Chen said.

Ask Americans their outlook on the country—its future, its economy, its president—and their mood has risen and fallen in surveys this year in striking sync with the price of gas. Gas prices go up, and fear that the country is on the wrong track often does, too. Gas prices go down, and so does unhappiness with the president. The price of gas plays a role in presidential approval ratings, consumer behavior, and development patterns. “It keeps as top of mind things that are not going well in the country, and not going well for you,” said IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong.

“It is a repeat of an old Republican gambit: when in doubt, scare people, particularly white people. Across the country, Democratic candidates have been demonized on crime this campaign cycle. This line of attack—that crime soars under Democrats—suggests to voters that Republicans would swiftly clean it up. But crime rates, and the trends behind them, often hinge on circumstances that defy political control,” writes associate professor of journalism and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

“Behind the implosion of British Prime Minister Liz Truss lurks a question. If her insistence on huge tax cuts doomed her, does that mean the era of the tax cut zombie is finally coming to an end? For years now, it has been clear that there’s no strong evidence that tax cuts fuel economic growth. But Republican politicians in the United States kept trying it anyway – it was the idea that wouldn’t die,” writes IPR sociologist Monica Prasad. “Does Truss’ fate show that big tax cuts, particularly for the rich, just aren’t a credible option anymore?”

Economically speaking, the signs pointed to a baby bust. But new research on U.S. birth rates during the pandemic upended that expectation. This week the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) released a working paper that instead shows evidence of a “COVID-19 Baby Bump” for some groups. “The one thing we can say with a lot of confidence is that there was not a baby bust,” IPR economist Hannes Schwandt said. “If anything, there was a baby bump.”

As union membership in the United States increases, Illinois voters will decide next month whether to amend their state constitution to guarantee the right to bargain collectively. Those who support the amendment believe it will guarantee workers the right to band together to achieve better wages, hours, and labor conditions. Those who would oppose the amendment argue that taking this action will result in higher taxes, too much power for unions, and more labor strikes. “A big important state like Illinois enshrining this right to their constitution sends a signal across the country that the right to bargain collectively is a fundamental right,” IPR political scientist Dan Galvin said.

For the first time in nearly 14 years, there was an increase in births in the past year, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new research by IPR economist Hannes Schwandt and his colleagues. The total number of births by U.S. mothers increased by almost 46,000 children. The previously declining birth rates sparked major concerns for the future of America, specifically for the future labor force and many programs that are associated with the aging population, which younger Americans may have to disproportionately support. This baby boom is the first major reversal in what had been declining fertility rates in the U.S.

Some Democrats this cycle are running ads that name-check Trump and emphasize bipartisanship. While access to abortion remains the focus of many of the Democrats’ TV ads, some incumbents in competitive districts are shifting their messaging to highlight their willingness to forge strategic alliances with Republicans, even one as polarizing as Trump. Campaigning on bipartisanship might seem out of step in what’s often viewed as a hyperpolarized era. But it’s a smart strategy, said IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong. “Individual legislators have a greater incentive to focus on bipartisanship and compromise at a time when being tied to the party is threatening or risky,” Harbridge-Yong said.

Recently, the White House held a conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, and President Joe Biden made a pledge to end hunger by the year 2030. As a result of the recent conference, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which used to be known as food stamps, was expanded with a goal of feeding around 41 million American citizens a month. “I firmly believe, as many of my peers who attended the recent White House conference do, that ending hunger is achievable. We can build a stronger and more resilient food system. But we need to work together,” IPR Director and economist Diane Schanzenbach wrote.

“A report released in September found that millions of fourth graders have fallen behind academically during the pandemic. There were declines across all racial and class groups, but, predictably, the largest declines have been among poor and working-class students, who are disproportionately Black and Latino,” writes African American studies scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. “Learning loss is real, and it won’t be addressed in a significant way unless, together, the two demand the vast money and resources that are necessary to change public schools in the poor and working-class communities where those resources are most needed.”

Midterm elections are quickly approaching, millions will head to the polls while struggling to feed themselves and their families. According to the US Department of Agriculture, over 13 million American households had trouble affording enough food in 2021. Many new findings also indicate that food hardship may be worsening in the coming year. While many programs to prevent hunger were installed during the pandemic, several programs have ended this year. Coupled with the effects of inflation, it has become even more difficult for Americans to afford food and for food banks to keep their shelves stocked. “A lot of these pandemic relief ideas have come and gone,” IPR Director and economist Diane Schanzenbach said. “The child tax credit reduced poverty 50%. Why didn’t we keep it?”

The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores—often called the nation’s report card—came out on Sept. 1 and the results were not just a wake-up call, but a fire alarm. The test, taken by 9-year-olds nationwide, showed math scores plunging by seven points from prepandemic levels, and reading scores by five, erasing roughly two decades of academic progress. As schools confront this massive learning loss, in-school tutoring may be one of the most effective tools they have to get students back on track, many experts said. Research by IPR economist Jon Guryan and colleagues at the University of Chicago on Saga Education’s tutoring model shows an even greater potential impact: the ability to close a gap of up to two and a half years of math in a single school year.

“Prominent Michigan Democrats are moving reproductive rights to the center of their campaigns, testing the potency of an issue that has put Republican candidates on the defensive for the first time in years. A string of elections, most notably in Kansas, have shown significant increases in turnout among pro-choice voters. Across Michigan, battles over abortion rights are being fought in a startling number of political, judicial, and medical arenas,” writes associate professor of journalism and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

The Biden government as launched a new effort to end national hunger by the year 2030 by expanding benefits such as the free school meals and food stamps. One in 10 US households struggled to feed their families in 2021 and children in 274,000 households experienced extreme hunger. The plan, published on Tuesday, wants to cut the number of households experiencing hunger from four to less than one percent by 2030, and half the number experiencing food insecurity. Additionally, this innovative initiative will seek to reduce diet-related diseases by increasing access to nutritious food and exercise. IPR director and economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach believes that the plan will start “an important set of conversations, but “wish[es] they would have addressed benefit adequacy, and SNAP as an automatic stabilizer, work requirements, and participation among immigrants.”

“The Republican love affair with corporations has always been more situational and malleable than it appeared. Rather than consistently being the party of business, the GOP’s support for the business lobby’s preferred policies has ebbed and flowed depending on where Republican politicians sensed their base to be. The GOP cares far more about currying favor with Republican voters than businesses, and we seriously misunderstand the historical moment if we overestimate the power of corporations and the wealthy in American politics,” writes IPR sociologist Monica Prasad.

“Weak ties,” or loose acquaintances with whom you have few connections, have proved most useful in helping people find employment. Though this idea was first popularized in 1973, a recent study looking at LinkedIn has corroborated the early findings. “Weak ties” can act as a bridge to different communities, who have access to different information and opportunities than your own. “That really shook people up because assumptions about how people find the best jobs in life doesn’t look to be true—it looks like actually strangers might be the best contacts for you,” management and strategy professor and IPR associate Brian Uzzi said.

A new study reveals that the child poverty rate fell by 59% between 1993 and 2019. Many factors contributed to this positive trend, but the Earned Income Tax Credit is one program that had a major impact on the reduction of child poverty since it expanded in the 1990s. Other factors include building a safety net for children at risk for poverty, improving food programs for children, reducing housing costs, investing in children, and reducing childcare costs. IPR social demographer Christine Percheski told WBEZ’s Rest, “We now have solid evidence of what works to reduce poverty in the U.S., and we owe it to our children to continue these policies.”

Since 1980, over 400,000 Black residents have moved out of Chicago, one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. These residents have been driven away by the historic legacy of racist real estate practices that kept them from moving into certain neighborhoods, the decline of the manufacturing industry and loss of jobs, and the more recent eruption of gun violence that shattered lives. Sociologist and African American studies researcher and IPR associate Mary Pattillo urges leaders to bear in mind the importance of citizens in every economic class as they work to mitigate the loss of the Black population. “We need to really be clear about who is valuable to cities. Low-income folks and people of color are valuable to cities. So, we shouldn't take the idea that losing that population to gain a richer population is the best way to plan a city,” Pattillo said.

For several decades now, education policymakers have been obsessed with data-driven accountability—usually with standardized test scores as the key metric. The approach has failed to achieve any of the goals supporters have championed, such as closing the achievement gap, and has instead brought us things like pep rallies to get students excited to take standardized tests and methods to evaluate teachers based on the scores. IPR education sociologist Simone Ispa-Landa and cultural sociologist Wendy Espeland discuss their findings that show schools have been forced to dedicate their time to “improving the numbers,” rather than focus on changes that would have a greater impact on students. “We should acknowledge that one-size-fits-all metrics do not fairly measure what matters most in many schools,” write Ispa-Landa and Espeland.

Last week, the National Center for Health Statistics alerted Americans to two facts about life and death in the U.S. The coronavirus pandemic killed so many people that U.S. life expectancy fell from roughly 79 in 2019 to 76 in 2021—the largest two-year decline in nearly a century. The U.S. fared worse in life expectancy than other high-income countries. Some of the most immediate causes of America’s high death rate are guns, drugs, and cars. The U.S. has more guns and gun violence than any other rich country. “Europe has better life outcomes than the United States across the board, for White and Black people, in high-poverty areas and low-poverty areas,” IPR economist Hannes Schwandt said.

A new study by IPR psychologist Sylvia Perry indicates that Black Medical students report a greater sense of belonging at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). This study is the first to focus specifically on Black medical students and their sense of belonging. Administered three times during students’ second year of medical school, students attending both HBCUs and predominantly White universities were asked to report on a variety of questions about how much they believed that they could succeed in their field.

Kansas Republicans employed several strategies to maintain the upper hand in an election that would determine abortion rights in the state, including picking a day with historically low voter turnout, intentionally using confusing ballot language, and campaigning with public misdirection. What started as a small group of advocates, including Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) grew to include around forty organizations that contributed over six million dollars and knocked on tens of thousands of doors. And in the end, “more than five hundred and forty thousand voters cast ballots to defend existing abortion rights, in a state that Donald Trump—who appointed three anti-abortion Justices to the Supreme Court—carried by nearly fifteen points less than two years ago,” reports associate professor of journalism and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

"This is not what Republican leaders of the anti-abortion movement in Kansas expected. Backed by millions of dollars from the Catholic Church, legislators thought they could quietly pass an amendment this week that would strip abortion rights from the state constitution. They wrote a ballot question with inscrutable language and intentionally placed it on a midterm primary ballot that historically draws Republican voters in far greater numbers than Democrats or independents. They figured they could win while the opposition slept. A historic number of Kansans went to the polls and, on Tuesday, dashed the Republicans’ plans.," writes journalism professor and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

Experts predict opioid overdoses will climb in both rural and urban areas because of the lethal practice of mixing the highly addictive narcotics with other drugs. The coming wave of opioid overdoses “will be worse than ever seen before,” said researchers from Northwestern Medicine in Chicago who studied trends and used a predictive model to determine where deaths would escalate. “I'm sounding the alarm because, for the first time, there is a convergence and escalation of acceleration rates for every type of rural and urban county,” said corresponding author Lori Post. She is director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and an IPR associate.

They aim to intervene and stop violence in Chicago, but street outreach workers often face gun violence themselves. A recent study by Northwestern University and SUNY Albany polled 181 people from 15 organizations in the city. Here's what they found: 60% percent of violence intervention workers said they have witnessed an attempted shooting, 32% saw someone get shot, 20% have been shot at and 2% have been shot and injured on the job.

And as the United States faces rising rates of violent crime, another research project emerged: A group of University of Chicago scientists unveiled an algorithm last month, boasting in a news release of its ability to predict crime with “90% accuracy.” The algorithm identifies locations in major cities that it calculates have a high likelihood of crimes, like homicides and burglaries, occurring in the next week. Andrew Papachristos, an IPR sociologist, said that when law enforcement uses algorithms to map and analyze crime, it often subjects people of color and low-income communities to more policing. When criticized for over-policing in certain neighborhoods, they often use data to justify the tactics, he said.

The links between income and life expectancy grew stronger for California residents following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study published this week. In 2019, California had a life expectancy difference of 11.52 years between its lowest- and highest-income areas. That difference jumped to 14.67 years in 2020 and increased again to 15.51 years in 2021, the study said. Lead author Hannes Schwandt, an IPR economist, said in the UCLA press release that researchers "had indications that the pandemic affected economically disadvantaged people more strongly, but we never really had numbers on actual life expectancy loss across the income spectrum." "I am shocked by how big the differences were and the degree of inequality that they reflected," Schwandt said.

The 21-year-old charged with opening fire at an Independence Day parade here had so alarmed his family with violent threats in 2019 that they summoned police, who confiscated more than a dozen knives and other sharp weapons from his home, authorities said Tuesday. According to police, the suspect in the parade attack had plotted for weeks. “This is not something where this kid woke up one day and said, ‘Hey, I think I’ll go shoot a bunch of people.’ It’s clear he’s been planning this for months and months,” said Lori Ann Post, an IPR associate who researches mass shootings as director of Northwestern University’s Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics.

Over the last several months, the Supreme Court has operated from the center of a political and cultural tornado. And while many aspects of these decisions warrant examination, it’s also worth noting how disorienting these decisions feel when you compare them to what the American public generally supports. In 2014, a joint study conducted by researchers at Princeton University and Northwestern University, including political scientist and IPR associate Benjamin Page revealed a shocking hypothesis about how policy creation in America actually works. After analyzing decades of public opinion across a range of topics, and then comparing that public opinion to the actual policy outcomes of those given topics, researchers concluded that the United States very rarely awards a popular opinion with an actual policy reflecting the will of that opinion.

The Chicago Tribune reported on IPR sociologist Beth Redbird’s project to gather and catalog the constitutions of North American Indigenous tribes from 1934–2020 to create a new public database. The research began in 2018 with undergrads from IPR’s Summer Undergraduate Research Assistants (SURA) program.

"In Russia, an estimated 11 million people have relatives in Ukraine. With so many family ties connecting the two countries, why haven’t more Russians risen up against Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine? In addressing these questions, our recent survey offers clues about the durability of Russians’ support for the war. The evidence is mixed on whether Ukrainians’ communications encourage their Russian relatives to rethink the veracity of pro-Kremlin information," writes political scientist Jordan Gans-Morse and his colleagues.

Millions of Americans are feeling similarly stuck as their savings run low and their cost of living runs high. Now, the economy appears poised to slow—potentially sharply—in ways that could limit wage growth and cause job losses even as prices remain elevated. Job losses can be devastating, often setting off a downward spiral of eviction and debt. Those who keep their jobs are likely to get fewer hours of work and to lose bargaining power. “Low-income workers, workers with low levels of education, Black and brown workers are the first to lose their jobs and the last to get them back,” said IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, who studies anti-poverty programs.

The expanded child tax credit expired last year. Some economists say that's eroding progress made in reducing child poverty during the pandemic—leaving families vulnerable during high inflation. NPR’s Morning Edition spoke to IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach about the end of the short-lived expanded pandemic monthly child tax credit as a tool to reduce child poverty. “I feel sad about it because of what I think it means for low-income children and our national investment in them."

There’s little debate among teachers that class size matters. One survey found that nine in 10 teachers said that smaller classes would strongly boost student learning. But some education policymakers and pundits remain skeptical, arguing that reducing class sizes is of limited value and diverts money from more effective investments. All told, “the impact of smaller classes would depend on many factors,” said IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach, “including whether funds are reduced for other student supports, the quality of the newly hired teachers needed to staff the smaller classes, and adequate availability of classroom space.”

WBEZ’s Reset spoke to Director, Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics and IPR associate Lori Post about mass shootings and mental health, and she said that most mass shooters don't have mental health issues where they can be held in a facility prior to a shooting. “They know exactly what is going to happen when they pull the trigger, when they use guns, when they use bullets, they know that it’s going to result in the killing of humans, and they don’t feel bad about it—they have no empathy. So just because they're evil doesn't mean you can hold them. You can only hold them for evil actions."

“As the U.S reels from another school shooting, much of the public discussion has centered on the lives lost. But this death toll captures only a part of the immense cost of gun violence in American schools. Our research shows that despite often escaping without physical harm, the hundreds of thousands of children and educators who survive these tragedies carry scars that affect their lives for many years to come,” write IPR economists Molly Schnell, Hannes Schwandt, and their colleagues.

So far in 2022–not even halfway through the year– there have been 24 shootings in American schools. In recent years, Illinois passed a red flag law that provides a path keeping those deemed by courts as a danger to themselves or others from having a gun. But there’s no federal law requiring background checks. Director of Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics, and IPR associate Lori Ann Post said that gun restrictions are only as strong as the weakest link because someone can easily drive across a state border to buy a gun that is banned in their own state.

So far in 2022, there have been 27 shootings at U.S schools that resulted in injuries or deaths. These events show how gun violence at schools has economic consequences for survivors. On Marketplace, IPR economist Hannes Schwandt discussed his research with fellow IPR economist Molly Schnell looking at the impacts of school shootings on students. Even if students just witness a shooting, they are still “less likely to graduate from high school, they’re less likely to go to college, and once they enter the labor market, we find they’re less likely to be employed and they also have lower earnings in their mid-20s,” he said.

Shootings have dropped in West Side neighborhoods this year, showing prevention and intervention programs are working, advocates said. Shootings are down more than 15 percent citywide compared to this time last year, according to an analysis by street outreach organization Chicago CRED. Research from Northwestern University’s Northwestern Neighborhood and Network Initiative shows shootings rarely happen when outreach workers are present.

In the Ohio Republican primary, totaling the votes for MAGA-style candidates—Vance, Josh Mandel and Mike Gibbons—shows that the Trump brand is tops in the Ohio GOP. Together, Vance and Mandel, the second-place finisher, combined for 56 percent of Republican voters. Research by IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong and her colleagues confirms this, finding that voters for these candidates shared similar beliefs—which were quite different from those who backed the more traditional candidate, state Sen. Matt Dolan, and Republican nonvoters.

In the likely event that Roe v. Wade is overturned, many states will immediately ban abortion. All 13 states with trigger laws technically have language that make exceptions to the bans for either pregnant females whose lives are at risk or "medical emergencies." Health disparities scholar and IPR associate Melissa Simon explained the necessity of abortion, citing the serious harm it could cause to pregnant people especially in cases of life-threatening situations. “It is really critical to have abortion as part of safe, comprehensive, high-quality maternity care. It's part of the whole continuum of maternal maternity care,” she said.

Associate professor of journalism and IPR associate Peter Slevin reported how abortion providers in the Midwest are preparing for interstate “abortion refugees” in the wake of a post-Roe world. In Republican-controlled states like Missouri, post-Roe would immediately lead to an abortion ban. However, in states like Wisconsin, where Republicans control the legislature but Democrats hold major statewide offices, the abortion ban would not be strictly enforced. For many advocates, the most promising path forward seems to be medication abortion.

As the Biden administration weighs the possibility of broad student loan forgiveness, a new study finds that people mired in student debt face a heightened risk of heart disease by middle age. IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade, who was not involved in the study, said that student loans can be seen as a benign form of debt because of the positives that come with it, such as a higher degree and more earning potential, but it has to be manageable. “Stress has direct physiological effects on the body, and it also affects your behavior–how you eat, whether you smoke,” he said.

Since 1973, Roe v. Wade has protected the right of all Americans to access safe and legal abortions. If it falls, the legality of abortion will be determined by each state. If this occurs, millions of people will not have access to safe abortion care in their communities, resorting to traveling domestically for such access. Although misinformation circulating around the internet argues that abortion is dangerous, health disparities scholar and IPR associate Melissa Simon argues otherwise. “It is a common procedure, it is very safe, and I can’t emphasize that enough. This draft ruling is egregious, it is basically a war against women,” she said.

Chicago police Sargent Ronald Watts and a group of more than 10 officers terrorized residents of Ida B. Wells public housing complex for over a decade, operating more like a street gang than a police unit. They have extorted taxes from drug dealers for protection, seized drugs for their own private distribution, and exploited gang tensions. This so-called “Watts crew” has been able to escape accountability because peers and supervisors aware of the behavior chose to look the other way. IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos writes that his research has found evidence of at least 160 other possible “cop crews” in the Chicago Police Department since the 1970s that have an outsized impact on misconduct.

In a new policy announced Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics said it is putting all its guidance under the microscope to eliminate “race-based” medicine and resulting health disparities. Pediatrician and IPR associate Nia Heard-Garris said that this new policy includes a brief history of how “some of our frequently used clinical aids have come to be–via pseudoscience and racism.” Regardless of the intent, these aids have harmed patients. “This violates our oath as physicians–to do no harm–and as such should not be used,” she said.

IPR developmental psychologist Onnie Rogers highlights her research in Psychology Today, which examines how the teenage years are a key period of development for Black girls. She and her co-author asked Black girls what being a Black girl means to them. “For many Black girls, their identity means negotiating a racial and gender hierarchy that positions Blackness and femaleness as less than–and at the same time rejecting that oppressive system,” Rogers writes. “We asked 60 teenage Black girls about the meaning and significance of "Black girl magic," and over 80% told us about the power of its affirmation and empowerment, the sense of connection and sisterhood.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased virtual meetings. Although some research shows that this adjustment might not impact workplace productivity in a significant way, a new study in Nature by management and strategy professor and IPR associate Brian Uzzi, suggests otherwise. The research found that video calls, as opposed to in-person meetings, reduced creative collaboration and the generation of novel ideas. “Virtual teamwork can’t replace face-to-face teamwork. Idea selection proficiency is only valuable if you have strong options to select from, and face-to-face teams are the best means to generate winning options,” he said.

Last year, the number of murders increased 4% in Chicago, alongside a 10% bump in shootings, which might seem to show that the city’s investment in violence prevention was misspent. But CRED and the dozens of other anti-violence programs that received city funding enrolled only about 2,500 participants citywide. Last year alone, nearly 4,000 people were shot in Chicago. CRED estimates there are 26,000 people who fit in the high-risk category of its recruits just in 17 of the city’s highest-crime neighborhoods. “To say that shootings and the aggregate homicide rate went up last year, and so we have to cut funding for these programs, is unreasonable. When crime goes up, do we say that it’s time to cut funding for police?” said Andrew Papachristos, IPR sociologist, who has studied CRED and related programs.

Food banks across the state are seeing an influx of new faces as spikes in the cost of groceries and gas have some Californians seeking help for the first time. The numbers of those receiving services dipped at the start of the year as the spread of the COVID-19 virus waned, but are now rising in the face of the highest inflation in 41 years. Twenty percent of Californians face food insecurity on a daily basis, according to an app by IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach, which tracks data weekly based on U.S. Census surveys.

Billionaires are neither good nor bad for the country — at least that’s what more than half of Americans think, according to a poll published by the Pew Research Center last year. Political scientist and IPR associate Ben Page, and his colleagues, Jason Seawright and Matt Lacombe, a former IPR graduate assistant, set out to determine the impact of these billionaires on congressional and presidential policies. They found that these multimillionaires skewed very conservative on economic issues, expressing a preference for marketplaces and philanthropy, rather than governments, to solve public problems. “The evidence has piled up in such a way that it’s maybe not unreasonable to call some of America’s wealthiest people oligarchs,” said Page.

Throughout 2017, Black politicians, activists, and executives told historically Black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, California, to start a marijuana business and create “generational wealth.” For disadvantaged Black residents, legal cannabis seemed the perfect way to balance profit margins and help other people heal with the medicinal usage of marijuana. Sociologist and African American studies researcher and IPR associate Mary Pattillo talked about the complicated situation that the sometimes self-enriching role of Black advocates and elected officials came to play in city politics. “My research shows that Black leaders really do take it to heart,” she said. “They do the work because they want to improve the conditions for Black folks broadly, and then, you know, as with all politicians, you get in there, and you realize how dirty it is when the sausage gets made.”

The concept of “platonic life partners” or (PLP) have been on the rise, where individuals are each other’s primary partners, except unlike married couples, romance and sex don’t factor into their relationship. Social psychologist and IPR associate Eli Finkel explained how the purpose of marriage has evolved over the past years, and how, as people expect their partners to fulfill multiple roles, “many relationships are buckling under the strain.” PLPs are a great addition to spouses, who may feel burdened to fulfill multiple roles.

The educational progression in the U.S has remained stagnant for about half a century. These results have worried politicians and policymakers for decades, calling for public education reform. However, a potential explanation for this trend could be that as high school dropout rates have fallen substantially since the 1970s, more students are taking high school NAEP tests, averaging out the test scores. IPR labor and education economist Kirabo Jackson said, “It’s a big deal. It’s not just some weird quirky theoretical idea—no. It’s a problem.”

“However this war unfolds, we in the West should recognize that while our aid, donations and rallies undeniably strengthen Ukraine’s capacity to withstand Russian aggression, this support pales in comparison with the contributions Ukraine is making in return. By courageously resisting the forces of violence and tyranny, Ukrainians are bolstering the security of Europe and North America and inspiring the West to rediscover the importance of its founding principles,” writes political scientist and IPR associate Jordan Gans-Morse.

Gun violence is surging in the U.S. After decades of decline, the murder rate is nearing record levels in many American cities. Law enforcement officials and experts on violence cite potential causes to include the current pandemic, the civil unrest of recent years, and the police backlash to the “defund the police” movement. IPR sociologist Andy Papachristos talked about the role violence interruption programs play in reducing violence in Chicago. “They’re seeing gains,” he said. “But it’s hard to say it’s bringing violence down. It’s not affecting the overall rate of violence.”

As Illinois lawmakers edge toward the end of spring session and head into campaign season, the focus has turned to potential bills that address the rise in crime. N3 executive director Soledad McGrath talked about her work with Neighborhood Network Initiative at Northwestern (N3), where her team analyzes violence interruption programs in Chicago, such as CP4P. They found that fatal and non-fatal gunshot injuries among participants were 20% lower 18 months after joining and roughly 30% lower 2 years after. “I know that people expect or want, really, to find that one thing, that one program, that one investment, that one handshake that’s going to fix all of it,” she said, “or that one law and that’s just not right and it’s disingenuous,” she said.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine didn’t just happen out of nowhere. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up tensions with the West for the better part of the last decade – he annexed Crimea, meddled in US elections, poisoned an ex-spy on British soil, and more. Nearly every step of the way, former President Donald Trump parroted Kremlin talking points, excused Russian aggression and sometimes even embraced it outright. “When Trump muddies the water by praising Putin, or undermines Zelensky and spreads falsehoods about Ukraine, this has real implications for how this crisis plays out,” said Jordan Gans-Morse, political scientist and IPR associate.

In South Dakota, where reproductive rights are constrained by some of the strictest laws in the country, medication abortion is being targeted by the Republican governor Kristi Noem, who wants to “undermine and remove” Roe v. Wade and outlaw abortion “completely.” Associate professor of journalism and IPR associate Peter Slevin reports that medication abortion is emerging as the next battleground for reproductive rights, particularly as laws governing surgical abortion grow less forgiving, and a conservative Supreme Court considers significantly weakening or removing the constitutional protections guaranteed by Roe v. Wade.

“Let’s get straight to the point: The water billing system in Chicago is poorly designed and should be scrapped ASAP. As economists, when we examine the design of public revenue systems, we look at three specific criteria: simplicity, efficiency, and equity. By our assessment, the water-sewer rates arguably satisfy only the first. Currently, a given household’s bill is priced at approximately $4.13 per 1,000 gallons used, a seemingly simple calculation to make and understand,” argues strategy professor and IPR associate Ben Jones and public finance economist and IPR associate Therese McGuire.

WBEZ Chicago spoke to Olga Kamenchuk, IPR associate research professor, about how Russians feel about the war in Ukraine. She said that while a majority of Russians are in support of the war, that number is much lower compared to previous support for the annexation of Crimea in 2014. She said that differences in age and whether Russians consume state TV or independent news online all play a role in public opinion about the war.

After years of little progress toward pay equity, more and more states and localities are passing pay transparency laws that eliminate the secrecy around salaries and could be a powerful tool for eliminating the gender pay gap. But the pandemic has intensified the concern that the gender pay gap could worsen, especially for women of color. Studies have shown that when workers are out of the labor force for extended periods of time, they struggle to return to work in jobs that are equivalent in pay and position to the ones they left. Economists at Northwestern University, including IPR associate Matthias Doepke, have estimated that the pandemic could set women back on gender parity as much as 20 years.

As Russia lays siege to multiple Ukrainian cities and President Vladimir Putin puts his nuclear deterrent forces on alert, the United States and its NATO allies face the most severe geopolitical crisis of the post-Cold War era. These events should serve as a stark warning: The office of the presidency, with its all but unlimited authority over the decision to employ nuclear weapons, needs to be Trump-proofed well before the 2024 presidential elections,” writes political scientist and IPR associate Jordan Gans-Morse.

Nearly nine in 10 Americans say they have noticed prices rising around them according to polls. And, when asked which of the price increases have caught their attention, many mentioned necessities like gas, milk, ground beef and bread — a notably different universe of products than the narrower set of items, like used cars and raw lumber, that were soaring in price last spring. IPR director and economist Diane Schanzenbach, who studies poverty, reported first noticing the increase in the price of beef. To poorer families, the difference in grocery prices can mean hunger.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing fierce resistance from the Ukrainians as he pursues to “demilitarize” the country, but even if Ukraine surrenders to Russia, maintaining control of the country won't be easy. IPR political scientist and IPR associate Jordan Gans-Morse does not believe Ukraine will so easily be stabilized by a Russian puppet government. “But this does not mean that we should be sanguine about the potential outcomes of the conflict,” said Gans-Morse. “The destruction Putin is likely to inflict on Ukraine as he grows frustrated is likely to be horrific.”

Lawmakers in Florida gave final approval Tuesday to a bill that would ban certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom, sending the controversial bill to the desk of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has signaled his support for the measure. Professor of medical social sciences and IPR associate Brian Mustanski told WTTW that research shows that these kinds of laws can negatively impact the mental health of the LGBTQ community.

President Joe Biden, a longtime foreign policy wonk, wants to punish Russia economically, making it harder–and ultimately impossible–for President Vladimir Putin to annex neighboring Ukraine and threaten the very integrity of world democracy. He also wants to keep gas prices from escalating even more before the midterm election, which could lead voters to punish Democrats at the polls. “The public does use gas prices when evaluating the president and that the president might benefit by making efforts to reduce such gas prices, particularly before elections,” according to a report PR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong.

The United Nations says more than a million refugees have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion and many more are still searching for ways to leave their home country. Olga Kamenchuk, an IPR associate research professor, told WTTW that the situation is hectic as Russians are “in shock” over the invasion. She said that while the majority of Russians support the war, that number has decreased since the 2014 invasion of Crimea.

As people in Chicago react to events in Ukraine, The Reader asked political scientist and IPR associate Jordan Gans-Morse, who is an expert on the former Soviet Union, about the current situation between Ukraine and Russia. “How will Russia maintain control?” he said. “The only likely way is by excessive force. There will be resistance, protests. Russia may be able to get control, but whether it can keep control is an open question.”

President Joe Biden has imposed sanctions on Russia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling it a violation of international law. Political scientist and IPR associate Jordan Gans-Morse said that although he thinks these sanctions will hurt Russia, he doesn’t believe they will influence President Vladimir Putin’s policy decisions.

MarketWatch examines how companies are responding to the tenuous ground on which Roe v. Wade now stands, and how they might use their clout to ensure their own workers’ access to abortion services and effect broader policy change. Brayden King, professor of management and organizations and IPR associate who studies the impact of social movements on corporate social responsibility, wonders if companies will actually be willing to put their money where their mouth is — especially if abortion access becomes even more dependent on geographical location in the near future. “Will they be less willing to move [to states with restrictive abortion policies] in the future, if they know that their employees will have this right restricted?” he said. “Will their female employees object to that?”

San Franciso District Attorney claimed that the city’s police lab had used DNA from a sexual assault survivor to implicate her in a crime years later and claimed the practice could be widespread. Experts and victim advocates said the revelation raises serious concerns about how local authorities may be storing and using—or misusing—genetic information, and how that could keep future victims from coming forward. Geneticist and IPR associate Sara Katsanis said, “I hope there's another reason that her DNA was out there because if this is commonplace then that causes a whole whirlwind of problems with our forensic science system.”

The earning potential of adults may be affected by whether they chose to break with gender stereotypes as children, new research by IPR economist Ofer Malamud has found, with headstrong girls and sensitive boys earning less as adults compared to their peers. According to a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, boys who exhibited more dependent behavior as children, like clinging to their parents, had a 6 percent decline in earnings as young adults, while girls characterized as assertive growing up had a 10 percent decline in earnings.

To a large extent, tools such as Zoom allowed knowledge workers to carry on work during the COVID-19 pandemic. A recent study from Kellogg Business School explores how things might have differed if the pandemic had struck before such tools were widely available. Professor of finance and IPR associate Janice Eberly and her colleagues analyzed seven countries, including the U.K., France, Germany, and the United States. The analysis found that GDP would likely have fallen by around twice as much during 2020 if remote working was not an option.

“An easy way to encourage elite universities to think harder about such issues would be to reconsider what it means to be one of the best universities. Should taking students who come from privileged backgrounds and turning them into adults who get privileged jobs be the measure of a university’s excellence? … It’s not hard to take a privileged kid and produce a privileged adult. Much harder is becoming the kind of place that serves as a launching pad for students without the advantages. In America, that should be the definition of an “elite” university and that should be what puts a college at the top of the “best” college rankings,” writes IPR sociologist Monica Prasad.

Founded on the concept of justice, equity, and diversity, Legal Prep previously had a dubious distinction: It suspended students at a higher rate than any other school in Chicago and issued 13 expulsions during the 2019-2020 school year, meaning almost one out of every 20 students was expelled. IPR developmental psychologist Terri Sabol said, “Expulsion is not great for children. It sets them up to feel disconnected from school, for thinking that they don’t belong. And it can have long term effects on their development and their connection to school.”

Pharmacy chain CVS reported strong fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday, helped along by the COVID vaccinations and testing it’s been doing. CVS said it administered 20 million COVID shots and 8 million tests during the quarter — both up significantly from the previous period. That shift to health care delivery is in full swing. Strategy professor and IPR associate Amanda Starc said, ”Now you have retail pharmacies offering some sort of higher-level services that perhaps folks aren’t used to getting at their local pharmacy.”

When researchers consider the classic five categories of taste— sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami— there’s little disagreement over which of them is the least understood. Sour is just a rough proxy for low pH— the presence of acid. The relationship with acidity is messy. Sour fruit, though sometimes an excellent snack, can also be too raw. Anthropologist and IPR associate Katie Amato explained that the sourness of fermented foods, such as sauerkraut and kombucha, may indicate safe and digestible qualities, so sour “would be selecting for the right kind of overripe fruit.”

Gun violence continues to impact Chicago, especially neighborhoods on the South and West side of the city. Experts say examining the environment that perpetuates gun violence is key to understanding the latest uptick in communities of color. One group that is crucial to preventing more violence are “violence interrupters.” "We're seeing reductions in involvement in gun violence. We're seeing reductions in victimization rates among the [community-led outreach organizations], all heading in the right direction," IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos said.

The graying of overdose victims is happening across the nation, not just in D.C. In 1999, 518 Americans 55 and older died in opioid-related overdoses. That number rocketed to 10,292 deaths in 2019, according to a Northwestern Medicine study by IPR associates Maryann Mason and Lori Ann Post published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That’s roughly the same number that die in drunken-driving deaths in the United States each year.

Want to lose weight from sleeping? Try extending your sleep time so you are not sleep-deprived, says a new study. And it's not just people who are overweight who find themselves craving carbs and adding pounds when they are sleep deprived, said Kristen Knutson, neurologist and IPR associate, who was not involved in the study. "Studies that observed increased appetite after sleep loss were in people who were not overweight. Getting sufficient sleep has health benefits for everyone regardless of body weight," Knutson said.

The city of Chicago has invested over $10 million in violence reduction strategies to tackle gun violence. Street outreach workers offer social services, mediation, and food to individuals most likely to get involved in a shooting. IPR sociologist Andy Papachristos, who studies the effectiveness of these programs, says that even during the pandemic violence interrupters had a positive impact. “The question is not about did they reduce violence by 50 or 60%, but how many lives did they save today?” he said.

The COVID-19 virus had been catastrophic for public health and the economy. But in the past, firms might have also laid off or furloughed most office workers; now, many people were still doing their jobs remotely. In an analysis of seven countries, Professor of finance and IPR associate Jan Eberly found that GDP would have fallen much more steeply in early 2020 if people had not been able to work from home. "You're not counting all of the inputs," she said, explaining that employees are covering the costs of workspace and utilities by working at home.

As America seeks to train workers for the hundreds of thousands of new infrastructure jobs that are being created, it will have to lean heavily on community colleges. But these workhorses of workforce development are facing some infrastructure issues of their own. Pandemic-related declines in enrollment, particularly in hands-on skilled trades courses, have only made things worse for these long-overburdened and underfunded schools. IPR director and economist Diane Schanzenbach said that community colleges are “the engine for growth in skilled workers,” but with the declining enrollment in these colleges, the engine is “sputtering.”

IPR associate Alexa Freedman talked about her research looking at the connection between police violence and Black women’s health in Chicago. The study, co-authored with IPR health psychologist Greg Miller and IPR sociologist Andy Papachristos, finds that Black women in neighborhoods with higher rates of excessive use of force by police were more likely to deliver preterm and have cardiovascular disease. “This is a potential source of stress that may impact pregnancy outcomes and that’s something that has long-term implications,” Freedman said.

According to the Pew Research Center, women made just 84% of what men made in 2020. The gender wage gap has long been attributed to education, occupation, and experience. CNBC highlighted research by IPR economist Ofer Malamud that suggests expectations for gender behavior that start in childhood could contribute to differences in earnings in early adulthood. They find that “headstrong” girls and “dependent” boys earn less as adults.

Sociologist and IPR associate Maryann Mason recently conducted a study on what could contribute to youth being shot in Chicago. She and her team looked at a spike in 2016–directly correlating the state’s budget problems at the time and how that cut funding to school activities and other anti-violence programs for youth. “A lot of these programs alleviate stress,” she said. “And stress is actually a risk factor for violence perpetration and victimization.”

Government interventions such as the Child Income Tax Credit (CITC) have a dramatic effect on families who are struggling at the poverty level or below. IPR director and economist Diane Schanzenbach discussed the impact of the CITC intervention and how households use it, as well as the policy changes that evolved amid the pandemic. She urged listeners to focus on the benefits these programs provide for the hungry, rather than the misuse of this intervention.

WGN TV interviewed IPR political scientist James Druckman about a survey regarding Americans’ usage of N-95 masks and at-home COVID-19 tests. He emphasized how mixed guidelines from the CDC have led to confusion among the general public regarding the type of mask recommended and general mask-wearing. “Mask wearing has dropped precipitously over the course of the pandemic,” he said. However, the majority of people now realize that N-95 masks provide a thicker layer of protection.

The issue of local reparations has taken hold of many Chicago neighborhoods and its greater suburbs. Evanston’s efforts have been regarded as a step towards redressing its past racial economic disparities. However, it has also been criticized for being overly narrow in eligibility criteria. IPR political scientist Chloe Thurston writes how Evanston’s program must balance optimal policy with policy considerations, noting that “Evanston is only at the beginning of this journey.”

Although the omicron variant is the most dominant strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus, the delta variant first found in India is still very much alive, and new research shows how it differs from other strains, particularly in pregnant women. Scientists detected the delta variant in the blood and placentas of women who had stillbirths and other serious pregnancy complications. Health disparities scholar and IPR associate Melissa Simon said, “This is really serious. The numbers are increasing, and we could prevent that-- the vaccinations could prevent that.”

A national survey using pediatrician and IPR associate Craig Garfield’s health surveillance tool, PRAMS for Dads, revealed that more than half of new fathers in the U.S are overweight or obese, while 1 in 5 are smokers. This result is worrisome and as fatherhood should present a new opportunity for these men to improve, not decline, their health. "Having a reliable source of information to see how men are impacted by the transition to fatherhood is an important first step in understanding how best to support families and children today," he said.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, some economists feared a second catastrophe: widespread college closure. IPR director and economist Diane Schanzenbach finds that declining enrollments in two-year programs teaching assembly, repair, and maintenance explain nearly all of the gender differences in community-college enrollments. Alternatively, perhaps the curtailment of co-curricular campus experiences has fallen more heavily on some student groups than others.

A new law in Illinois allows homeowners to change their property deeds to remove racist clauses that were previously used to bar certain ethnic or religious groups from purchasing homes. IPR political scientist Chloe Thurston said racial restrictive covenants, and other forms of housing discrimination such as redlining, shrank the housing supply for Black families and, as a result, their ability to pass down wealth to later generations. She also noted that the legacy of other restrictive processes “is not going to be addressed by simply removing language from a deed that most people don’t think about or see.”

Birth rates have fallen in the U.S over the last six years, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. WBEZ’s Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons spoke with IPR social demographer Christine Percheski on the economic impact of this decline. She said that the drop does not necessarily indicate people’s reluctance to have kids entirely, but rather, “I think the bigger change will be when people have children and how many, not whether they have children.”

“Many colleges and universities have started the new semester online while also imposing draconian restrictions, such as forbidding students to eat at restaurants, even outdoors, or traveling for personal reasons,” writes law professor and IPR associate Max Schanzenbach. He argues that college students might have legal recourse against these universities, despite the university officials believing that online education may be necessary for the safety of their community.

Opioid overdose deaths for older Americans are reaching unprecedented numbers. The number of Americans 55 and older who died from an opioid overdose surged 1,886% from a little over 500 deaths in 1999 to more than 10,000 deaths two decades later. More disturbing still is that older non-Hispanic Black men were found to be four times more likely to die from an opioid overdose than other older adults. Those are the findings of a new report by sociologist and IPR associate Maryann Mason and director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics, and IPR associate Lori Post.

In adults ages 55 and older, opioid overdose deaths rose tenfold between 1999 and 2019, surging from 0.9 deaths per 100,000 people to 10.7, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open by IPR associates Maryann Mason and Lori Ann Post that analyzed two decades of data. Those numbers translate to a lot of additional lives lost. In 2019, nearly 10,300 people ages 55 and older died from opioid overdoses, compared to just over 500 in 1999. During the study period, 79,893 U.S. residents 55 and older died from an opioid overdose.

Hands-on technical programs typically dominated by male students and largely dependent on in-person coursework were hard hit by the pandemic and led to steep declines in male enrollment at community colleges across the country, according to a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. “We in our social science fields were able to move onto Zoom without much trouble,” said co-author Diane Schanzenbach, director of the Institute for Policy Research. “I mean, it was a pain in the neck, don’t get me wrong, but we could still do it and serve the same number of students. But how are you going to teach welding?”

When Nicole Sullivan moved into her neighborhood in unincorporated Mundelein about ten years ago she discovered a restrictive covenant in her property deed. It was written decades ago, aimed at barring people of African, Japanese, Chinese and Jewish descent from moving in certain areas. Racial restrictive covenants, which were common between the 1920s and late 1940s, were contractual agreements by a group of property owners or developers to keep certain groups out. "If you have a house that was built before 1950, there's a pretty good chance that there's a restrictive covenant in the deed, particularly if that was a neighborhood that was historically predominantly white," IPR political scientist Chloe Thurston explained.

Much of the conversation around the drop in birthrate has been to pearl-clutch at “entitled” millennial stereotypes or to pontificate on the joys of child-rearing. Historically, fertility drops during wars, recessions and pandemics, says Christine Percheski, IPR demographer. In these periods of tragedy and uncertainty, someone doesn’t have to be directly affected by the crisis at hand to want to delay childbearing. “It’s not just about if an individual lost their job,” Prof. Percheski says. “It’s a generalized uncertainty or economic turmoil in their communities.”

On Jan. 6, 2021, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. This year on the anniversary of that event, the nation is reflecting on the insurrection and the events that led up to it, including the spread of unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. Stephanie Edgerly, director of research at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and IPR associate, says this mistrust allows other, potentially less accurate sources of information to step in. “It’s the relationship between distrust of mainstream media and who you give your trust to,” Edgerly said. In a time when people are flooded with information from almost infinite sources on a daily basis, personal biases may influence the information people choose to consume.

Dr. Lori Post, Director of the Institute for Public Health and Medicine at Northwestern University, joins Jon Hansen, on Chicago’s Afternoon News to discuss the strain on hospitals, how many Illinoisans are COVID positive and how fully vaccinated people can stay safe from omicron.

Social justice movements swept through the U.S. in 2020, and calls for defunding police came along with them. Leaders of the country's largest cities listened, and police budgets were cut in many places. A year later, however, those budgets have inched back up, and early indications are that 2022 could see even more funding for police departments across the country. IPR faculty emeritus Wesley Skogan said a spike in crime in 2021 "made it a really tough political environment to talk about cutting back the number of police."

With at-home testing demand soaring for the holidays, some are wondering which tests are best for detecting the new omicron variant surging across the country. Professors said while omicron might currently evade one test, that same test may work to detect a new variant in the future. “While the Centers for Disease Control evaluate which home tests are less effective at providing an accurate result, it is important to keep in mind that rapid tests are an important tool for keeping everyone safe as many of us travel to be with family over the holidays,” said Thomas McDade, IPR anthropologist.

Chicago already has more than 800 homicide deaths in 2021, the most violent year in a quarter century, according to autopsy records from the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Experts point out that Chicago’s homicide surge coincides with elevated violence in many other cities. And, they say, while the causes of gun violence trends are notoriously difficult to pinpoint, Chicago’s current surge seems tied to a few factors, starting with the pandemic. “COVID shut down the things that keep most communities safe—parks, schools, recreational sports, employment,” said Andrew Papachristos, an IPR sociologist who studies gun violence. Second, Papachristos said, is increased estrangement from government, especially the criminal justice system.

When kids and teenagers have easy or unsupervised access to guns, bad, and often irrevocable, things can happen. People "greatly underestimate the probability of risk of their behaviors. And they overestimate the effectiveness of their communications that they're warning to their children, and their children's understanding of them," said Linda A. Teplin, psychiatrist and IPR associate.

Pfizer announced Wednesday its vaccine booster shot increases antibody protection against COVID-19 by 25-times. That good news is coupled with results from IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade who is testing blood samples against the omicron variant. He said it’s important to discuss antibodies but it’s equally critical to focus on cellular immunity which lasts longer than the initial vaccine antibody boost. “What we are seeing with Omicron is similar to the story with Delta over the summer, the variant has changed a bit which means that the vaccine that we all received which was generated against the original version of the virus isn’t quite as effective, but it is still very effective,” he said. “Especially with our cellular immune defenses.”

Research by IPR psychologist Sylvia Perry reveals that racial stereotypes impact whether a risk-taker is perceived as reckless or responsible. These findings have implications for any field that involves risk assessments, such as medicine and law enforcement, but also fields that are less obvious, such as higher education. Perry said, “There’s evidence shown that students at historically Black colleges receive higher interest rates [on student loans].”

As the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus emerges, experts say it’s only a matter of time before it’s reported in the United States. However, Lori Ann Post, director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics and IPR associate, said it’s too early to make assumptions about the variant's severity and whether or not the COVID-19 vaccines are effective.

While overall, Americans are supportive of leave for caregivers of children, there is less support for paternal leave than there is for maternal leave. Seema Jayachandran, an IPR economist, looked at studies from Norway, which has government-supported parental leave. According to a 2019 report from Statistics Norway, about 70 percent of men take the full amount of Norway’s “paternity quota.” Jayachandran argued that the only way men will not be punished for taking leave is if almost everybody does it.

During the coronavirus pandemic, as the economy has been upended and demand at food banks has continued to surge in many places, so, too, has local food activists’ desire to create small locations where anyone can pick up a few items at any time with no questions asked. While the concept has existed for many years, the pandemic has inspired the creation of hundreds of new free fridges across dozens of cities over the last 18 months and made them something that is here to stay. “It takes a tapestry of programs and approaches to eliminate the multifaceted problem of hunger in the United States, and community refrigerators for sure can play an important role,” said IPR director and economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach.

Prices for gas and groceries are soaring as inflation hits decades-high levels, and there are warnings that people could find themselves paying as much as 54 percent more to heat their homes this winter. People who receive SNAP benefits are once again caught in a crunch. “Low-income people, because they have less slack in their budgets, are more harmed by inflation,” IPR director and economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach said. “It does squeeze food budgets, and we do know that a lot of low-income families face that.” Management and organizations professor and IPR associate Lauren Rivera’s research into “looking glass merit,” shows that managers tend to hire people who share their own traits. This is particularly a problem, according to Rivera, because hiring is “one of those critical gate-keeping moments whereby the judgments we make about people have enduring effects”.

After deliberating all day, the jurors in Kyle Rittenhouse’s homicide trial will break for the night. Rittenhouse is charged with five counts, including homicide and attempted homicide, after shooting three people in August 2020 amid the unrest that gripped Kenosha, Wis., following a police shooting. Law professor, psychologist, and IPR associate Shari Seidman Diamond said, “The jurors are aware there is a lot of media attention and public attention, and if anything, the effect of that is to make them want to be particularly thoughtful and careful.”

On October 21, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded their recommendations on who can get a COVID-19 booster shot. There is still some confusion regarding certain populations—and how they fall into these categories. Namely, pregnant people are wondering: Can (and should) they get a COVID-19 booster, too? Health disparities scholar and IPR associate Melissa Simon recommends categorizing pregnant people with high-risk people: “I tell my patients that the COVID-19 vaccine, whether it’s the first series or booster, is completely safe and recommended during pregnancy,” she said.

The cost of health insurance is–still–steadily rising for the nearly 155 million Americans who get health benefits through their job. Efforts to make healthcare more affordable have been incremental at best, and experts worry policymakers aren’t addressing the root causes of growing costs. Healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite said, “I think we lose the fact that this is coming out of the pockets of Americans. It's not some largesse from your employer.”

Shopping for groceries and basic household essentials have become more expensive these days. While higher food prices have impacted all families across the country, it has especially taken a negative toll on low-income ones. “Families that have to spend a higher share of their incomes on necessities get squeezed more when the prices of necessities increase,” said IPR director and economist Diane Schanzenbach.

Some workers are more likely to get promoted than others, leaving many employees stagnating. Statistics show certain groups of people get left behind as others move up the career ladder. Though anyone can find themselves stuck in a role, it happens more often to women, workers of color and employees of low socioeconomic backgrounds. Management and organizations professor and IPR associate Lauren Rivera’s research into “looking glass merit,” shows that managers tend to hire people who share their own traits. This is particularly a problem, according to Rivera, because hiring is “one of those critical gate-keeping moments whereby the judgments we make about people have enduring effects”.

Congress is considering a modest drug price regulation that could have real impact. This new regulation that Congress is considering would reduce the amount patients on Medicare would have to pay for drugs out-of-pocket, restrict annual price increases, and allow Medicare to negotiate directly on drug prices. Healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite said, “There is a real trade-off we face here between costs today versus treatments tomorrow.”

Often, people ask if sleeping with their pet improves their sleep. However, it is equally important to ask if the reverse is true as well: Is sleeping with their owner good for the pet? Neurologist and IPR associate Kristen Knutson noted how people’s pets inevitably move during the night, which can lead to “microawakenings” that “are disruptive because they pull you out of deep sleep.”

Associate professor of journalism and IPR associate Peter Slevin reported on the legacy of former Secretary of State Colin Powell who had misgivings about the U.S-led invasion of Iraq. Upon his death, Slevin follows Powell’s latest reflection on his role during the initial phase of “War on Terror.” “I think any good subordinate accommodates himself to the wishes of his superior,” the former Secretary of State told him in 2003.

Although the job market seems to be improving for current college seniors, recent graduates are still struggling to find work. The pandemic has led to missed opportunities-from internships to in-person interactions with professors. IPR economist Hannes Schwandt’s research finds that graduates who enter the job market during a recession may have long-term negative mental and physical outcomes.

“Drugmaker Merck just shared stunning data on molnupiravir, an oral antiviral it developed to combat covid-19. In molnupiravir’s phase three clinical trial, it cut covid-19 patients’ risk of being hospitalized or dying by 50%,” writes healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite. But some activist groups are focusing on the price of these vaccines and ignore the basic economics of how drugs are developed, he explains. If we want to cure diseases like COVID-19, we must first stop vilifying partnerships between drug companies that are “ordinary and essential part of an efficient drug development process,” he argues.

In the last few weeks, the Democrats have veered from one tax-the-rich plan to another. IPR sociologist Monica Prasad asks why it is so hard to tax the rich. “As it happens, there is one option that would not require any complex new administrative procedures, and that has actually been tried recently, and has been shown to work — but it’s Democrats who are standing in the way,” writes Prasad. She argues that although the Democrats could increase taxes on the wealthy by repealing the deductions cap on state and local taxes, they won’t do it because it ultimately benefits the rich in the blue states.

There are certain spans of time when scientists, artists, and inventors have phenomenal periods of productivity. This can also be true for most people​​—many have bursts of what some researchers have called “hot streaks” where, during that streak, they seem to flourish in their work. Strategy professor and IPR associate Benjamin Jones and his colleagues discovered that the ability of scientists and inventors to produce Nobel Prize-winning insights and landmark technological contributions peak between the ages of 35 and 40.

Papachristos is the director of Northwestern’s Neighborhood and Network Initiative, which is studying the anti-violence efforts Chicago CRED and Communities Partnering for Peace. He said the early findings show the street outreach workers are succeeding at finding the individuals who are in “immediate harm’s way” on Chicago’s streets. He explained that anti-violence efforts in Chicago do not receive enough funding despite their effectiveness. “I think we need consistent investment. And we need to make sure we bolster the things we think are having an impact,” he said.

The recent legislation pushed by President Joe Biden include proposals that would reshape many aspects of children’s lives. This legislation would make it easier for states to offer universal pre-K, offer free school meals and cash benefits for the nation’s poorest families. IPR director and economist Diane Schanzenbach explained that the evidence for the impact of pre-K programs is strong and that the Biden administration’s goal to launch and expand pre-K across the nation is a “sensible investment.”

With food prices surging, many Americans have found their household budgets upended, forcing difficult choices at the supermarket and putting new demands on programs intended to help. Even well-off Americans have noticed that many items are commanding higher prices, but they can still manage. It’s different for people with limited means. “When prices go up, they have less slack in their budgets to offset and they are quick to fall into hardship,” IPR director and economist Diane Schanzenbach said.

“There are many things kids love about the fall—the cider, the pumpkins, the trick-or-treating and more. But with the rollout of annual flu shots and an impending authorization of the Covid vaccine for kids ages 5 and up, the fall season may not be so enjoyable for children who are terrified of needles. The good news is that parents and caregivers can help children overcome their fears if they understand the best ways to offer support,” writes pediatrician and IPR associate Nia Heard-Garris. She explains ways to make vaccination as painless as possible.

"The volume of life lost in the U.S. has revealed a foundational weakness in our nation's death investigation system—a key resource within our public health infrastructure. Data, especially data about death, is key to understanding, developing, testing and scaling interventions to protect the health of our nation. Yet we invest relatively little in this crucial information infrastructure,” argues sociologist and IPR associate Maryann Mason.

"Now is the time to invest in promising neighborhood-based violence prevention programs. While they are in no way the cure for all of the gun violence, efforts like street outreach are an essential part of the solution that reaches and connects people to lifesaving resources. Even if outreach participants alter their own behavior—which they appear to be doing—programs that focus solely on individuals without considering the fuller neighborhood context will likely only have limited impact. Any serious effort to reduce levels of gun violence must balance lifesaving on-the-ground efforts such as street outreach with true transformative changes aimed at improving the life and well-being of the city's neighborhoods," writes IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos.

School vouchers allow low-income families to send their children to private schools that they may otherwise not be able to afford. Yet the public financing for private education is still uncommon and there is already increasing evidence that these vouchers may not always increase students’ performance in school. IPR education economist David Figlio explained how growing school voucher programs and the possibility of too many students leaving the public school system may actually hurt public school funding. “We need to be watching very carefully to make sure that we’re not starting to see harm happening for public schools,” he said.

The majority of unvaccinated Americans are concerned enough about the coronavirus to wear masks regularly, a recent poll by IPR political scientist James Druckman found, perhaps dispelling a common belief that those who choose not to get vaccinated remain largely unconcerned about contracting COVID-19. The survey was conducted between Aug. 26 and Sept. 27, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed its mask guidance, recommending that most people once again wear masks in indoor spaces, regardless of vaccination status. Still, the majority of states did not impose mask mandates, leaving the decision largely up to individuals, or in some cases, local governments and businesses.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, schools received coronavirus relief money from the American Rescue Plan. Though many districts have launched surveys or held town hall meetings, just one in five public school parents said they recall being asked by their child’s school how to spend the new money, according to a recent nationwide poll. IPR social policy expert Sally Nuamah commented on how school leaders can engage parents and students in district decisions. “If the school district wants to ensure that they’re talking to all the people, much like when we do the Census, you have to do the work of actually knocking on the doors and getting people who wouldn’t ordinarily come out, to come out,” she said.

Professor of journalism and IPR associate Peter Slevin reported on the reopening of Michele Clark High School, a public school on the city’s West Side. Students at Michele Clark High were relieved to return to classes, but shootings on the West Side mean that their problems are far from over. “The pandemic was bad, they agreed—the lack of contact, the feeling of being cooped up—but the violence on the West Side worsened their problems,” he wrote.

Congress’s ambitious plans to expand health coverage are crashing up against one of the great questions in health policy: Can they force the pharmaceutical industry to hold down prescription drug prices without sacrificing the medical innovation that could lead to new treatments and cures in the future? ​​Vox asked Healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite if the U.S. can cut drug prices without sacrificing medical innovation, and he said policies more focused on introducing competition into the drug market with less strict patent protections could lead to cost savings and medical breakthroughs.

Death comes for us all. But recent research points to interventions in diet, exercise and mental outlook that could slow down aging and age-related diseases — without risky biohacks such as unproven gene therapies. Not enough Americans can access healthy lifestyles, however, and we’re getting sick and dying earlier across economic levels compared with other countries. People under 65 in the richest areas of the United States have higher mortality than those in the poorest areas of Europe, according to a study published by IPR economist Hannes Schwandt in September.

Chicago’s plan to bring down its staggeringly high levels of gun violence leans hard on an anti-violence strategy known as street outreach. The outreach workers, often former gang members, try to intervene in ongoing gang conflicts by convincing young men to put guns down, to forgo revenge. They have “lived experiences” that give them the perspective and reputation needed to gain entry into the groups driving the city’s gun violence. “We have to build this workforce, we have to invest in this workforce, we also have to understand them and make sure they have what they need to succeed,” said Andy Papachristos, IPR sociologist.

A recent report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that in 2020, families with children were hit harder with food insecurity and experienced an increase in hunger. But the recovery is not occurring equally across cities, regions and communities, according to IPR director and economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, who also serves on the board of the Greater Chicago Food Depository. “We’re seeing that in Chicago, too,” she said by email. “I think that’s telling us that many families are still deeply hurting economically. That’s not surprising—recoveries are always uneven, and historically low-income families are hurt both worse and for a longer period after recessions.”

Rutgers University-Camden and a local nonprofit recruited 15 barbers to help answer client questions about the COVID-19 vaccine to combat misinformation. The White House and local health departments partnered with 1,000 other barbershops and hair salons for a similar initiative. Psychologist and IPR associate David Rapp said it's crucial to try to understand what the primary reasons are that are making people skeptical of getting vaccinated. “You have to meet them where they are at and then think about what are their core issues that are making them resistant,” he said.

Dotdash, a digital-age magazine giant reached an agreement to acquire Meredith, the conglomerate publisher of over 40 titles and digital brands. Medill dean and IPR associate Charles Whitaker said this merging of Dotdash and Meredith is troubling. “This continued consolidation is obviously troubling. The more competition and the more companies that we have producing content, providing jobs and appealing to audiences is better for the industry,” he said.

Street Outreach programs are supposed to prevent further gun violence in Chicago and it has been effective in finding individuals who are exponentially more likely to be in harm's way compared to their neighbors. IPR sociologist Andy Papachristos talked to WBEZ about the overall effectiveness of these programs and denotes the successes of Chicago CRED and Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P) but urged additional investment in anti-violence infrastructure. 

Congressional Democrats continue to tussle over details in a $3.5 trillion spending proposal. The advance child tax credit is up for debate–the expanded policy provides households with monthly cash deposits of up to $300 per child. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia wants those benefits to come with work requirements, which many fellow Democrats oppose. IPR director and economist Diane Schanzenbach argued that although work requirements have been useful for some programs, it doesn't make sense to deny kids benefits based on their parents' employment status. “How much do we want to punish them because mom lost her job, or because mom’s, you know, got mental health issues?" she said.

Finding someone who can meet you where you are no matter how many cross-sections of marginalized identity you carry can be difficult. For starters, there aren’t enough mental health clinicians in this country in general. A 2020 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation found less than 30% of the mental health needs of the country are being met due to a lack of available clinicians. And if you’re specifically trying to find a therapist who shares an aspect of your identity that is marginalized, it can be even harder. “I could easily have a three-month wait,” said Crystal Clark, psychiatrist, behavioral scientist, and IPR associate.

Former U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords highlights the swarm of media attention that covers high-profile mass shootings and leaves as suddenly as it comes. She argues the effectiveness of community violence prevention and intervention investment by President Joe Biden. Research by Northwestern Neighborhood & Network Initiative showed participants in the Creating Real Economic Diversity (CRED) program that uses street outreach to intervene with high-risk individuals subjected to violence are half as likely to be shot or arrested. 

One school-based challenge now circulating on TikTok known as “Devious Licks” is encouraging students to vandalize school bathrooms and post their actions. “This is criminal behavior. Vandalism is criminal behavior. Touching another human being inappropriately is criminal behavior. Using fire extinguishers in the middle of a class for a joke is criminal behavior,” said Brian Uzzi, management and strategy professor and IPR associate, “So I think TikTok really needs to be must more forceful and needs to shut this down as fast as possible.”

Congress is in full-on chaos mode right now, with the future of infrastructure, government funding, the debt limit and voting rights all uncertain. But at the heart of the chaos is a core disagreement over a basic tenet of governing: Is bipartisanship still possible? If you look beyond the partisan media’s name-calling, you can find surprising amounts of bipartisan activity, as IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong showed in her 2015 book “Is Bipartisanship Dead?”

In 2021, when so many subtle and more conspicuous aspects of colonialism and white supremacy are being interrogated and examined, what is the role of Hispanic Heritage Month in this moment and is it doing more harm than good? “It’s important in the conversation, I think, that there are millions of folks for whom ‘Hispanic’ is a useful category or speaks to their identity,” said Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, sociologist and IPR associate, while also noting that the history of the term is complex and can be fraught.

Food stamps became available in some parts of the country earlier than in other parts; so did Medicaid, which was also expanded in a series of discrete jumps. This stuttering, haphazard approach to helping poor children amounted to an unintentional form of human experimentation: We can compare the life trajectories of Americans who received crucial aid as children with those of their contemporaries or near-contemporaries who didn’t. And a number of researchers, notably Hilary Hoynes and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, have used this evidence to show that childhood poverty has huge adverse effects.

The latest Student Voice survey of 2,000 incoming sophomores, juniors and seniors (conducted Aug. 18 to 25) reveals that the pandemic played a role in graduating earlier or later than planned (for one in four students), changing what they want to do after graduation (also for one in four), changing their major (17 percent) and changing plans about grad school, either to attend or not attend (16 percent). Breaking down Student Voice survey results by gender, respondents identifying as nonbinary are more likely than their peers to say the pandemic impacted their next steps after college. “Narrow and binary constructions of sex and gender contribute to and intersect with other systems of privilege and disadvantage, like race and class,” said Simone Ispa-Landa, IPR education sociologist.

Sexual assault and nonconsensual drugging incidents have historically dictated Northwestern's Greek life party culture. IPR education sociologist Simone Ispa-Landa and David Schieber explain the toxicity and the historically White culture of Greek life, and the dangers these parties impose on vulnerable college students. "One immediate change is to move campus parties away from fraternities," they said.

Americans die younger than Europeans. That is true whether they are rich or poor, black or white, toddlers or OAPs. The latest confirmation of the mortality gap across the Atlantic comes from a newly published study that tracked death rates in the United States and Europe over the past 30 years. The paper, co-authored by IPR economist Hannes Schwandt, sets out to compare the changing gap in mortality rates of black and white Americans over time, using Europe as an external benchmark. (The paper combines data from six countries – England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain.) In so doing, it provides lessons, not just for America but for European nations too, not least Britain.

Two women of color will be on the ballot in Boston’s general election for mayor in November, setting up a historic outcome when one of them is elected to the top position in a city that has exclusively elected White men to lead it. IPR political scientist Tabitha Bonilla said it’s too early to know whether race or local political circumstance played a role in the primary. “It’s hard for political scientists who are doing this analysis with tons and tons of data to effectively sort out, so it could be really hard to sort out here,” she said.

As Senate Democrats clash over what an expanded child tax credit will look like in their $3.5 trillion social spending bill, over 400 economists laid it out simply: the credit should be made permanent to combat child poverty in the country. On Wednesday, 410 economists, led by Berkeley economics professor Hilary Hoynes and IPR director and economist Diane Schanzenbach, sent a letter to House and Senate leadership urging them to make the expanded child tax credit permanent.

We talk a great deal about antibodies when it comes to post Covid infection and vaccinations. But there is another critical immune response that plays a role in Covid protection and it lasts long after antibodies wane, potentially extending vaccine power. Since the early days of the pandemic, Thomas McDade and his co-researchers have used Chicago as a field study seeking out antibodies in samples sent to their lab at Northwestern University. “We found about 20 percent of people through the Fall of 2020 were exposed to SARS,” said IPR anthropologist McDade.

Before the 1990s, average life expectancy in the U.S. was not much different than it was in Germany, the United Kingdom, or France. But since the 1990s, American life spans started falling significantly behind those in similarly wealthy European countries. According to a new working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Americans now die earlier than their European counterparts, no matter what age you’re looking at. “Europe has better life outcomes than the United States across the board, for white and Black people, in high-poverty areas and low-poverty areas,” said Hannes Schwandt, an IPR economist who co-wrote the paper.

For years, companies tended to steer clear of hot-button political and social questions out of fear they would alienate consumers. But over the past decade or so, that’s changed: Many Americans have come to expect companies to take a position on a range of issues. “It’s not abnormal for companies to take positions on issues that have a direct correlation with their bottom line,” said Brayden King, professor of management and organizations and IPR associate. “What seems pretty new in the last five or six years is what we’re calling progressive corporate activism.”

First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes baby in the baby carriage. While that childhood rhyme used to be true, college-educated women in the United States are now more likely than ever to have a first baby outside marriage. They're also more likely than other women to have a wedding ring by the time they have their second baby. "College-educated women are just in a much better position to get rewarding jobs that pay well and they're in a better position to bargain with partners and, if they want marriage before kids, to get that," said Christine Percheski, IPR social demographer.

After a thunderstorm tore across Iowa in August 2020, causing $4 billion in damage, six construction workers drove from Texas to Cedar Rapids to help rebuild. Promised daily pay of around $200 cash, plus travel and housing costs, the men arrived in Iowa in October and began work on a senior living center. Soon, however, the men stopped getting paid. IPR political scientist Daniel J. Galvin said Latino and Black workers are far more likely to be paid below minimum wage than their white counterparts.

This month, the emergency aid ends. But permanent increases follow. Starting October 1, SNAP will use a new updated formula to determine people's benefits, one that reflects the rising cost of healthy groceries. The change means families not only avoid a cut in aid as the pandemic recedes, but in many cases will see additional monthly help to stay afloat. It's the largest single increase in SNAP's history, a part of President Joe Biden's pledge to end child hunger. It's going to mean a lot of children who grow up less likely to experience hunger, better able to pay attention in school, and so that they grow up to be healthier, more academically successful, sort of better attached to the labor market in the long run,” said Diane Schanzenbach, IPR director and economist.

A new study suggests that people who experienced asymptomatic or mild cases of COVID-19 don’t have a greater level of immunity to the virus after their first vaccine dose compared to those who never tested positive for the virus. “Based on our research, and research of other groups, the vaccines are very effective at generating immune protection against the variants, even if that level of protection isn’t quite as high as it would be against the original version of the virus,” said Thom McDade, IPR anthropologist.

It is hard to look at the number of shootings and homicides in Chicago over the last 20 months and find a silver lining. By every measure, our city is in crisis and our efforts to keep our communities and our police safe are simply falling short. On the violence prevention side, we have seen laudable efforts on the part of street outreach organizations. Research from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago shows that this violence intervention approach is beginning to bear fruit. In fact, the latest research from Northwestern shows that participants in Chicago CRED’s program are half as likely to be shot or arrested compared to non-participants with similar backgrounds and characteristics.

As summer winds down, Chicago is on pace to have its highest annual murder tally in a quarter century. In normal times, the start of a new school year would help curb summer violence. But faculty emeritus Wesley Skogan, an expert on crime and policing, is watching for Chicago Public Schools fall enrollment figures. When the pandemic set in last year, CPS lost contact with some students. Last fall, enrollment plummeted and the city’s murder numbers remained elevated. “We’re looking forward to finding out the extent to which students now reconnect with schools and show up again,” Skogan said, pointing out that COVID-19’s continued spread has made parents “very leery about sending their kids back to school right now.”

Earlier this August, a traffic stop left a beloved police officer shot to death and another partially paralyzed, sending shockwaves throughout Chicago. The following morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot gave a speech pushing a narrative that’s dominated city news conferences and court hearings for decades. “We have a common enemy: It’s the guns and the gangs,” she said. According to IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos, “Saying the word ‘gang’ makes the victim less sympathetic, it makes the situation less sympathetic, it creates an ‘other.’”

A new study from IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade, professor of medical social sciences and IPR associate Brian Mustanski shows that skipping the second COVID-19 vaccination shot is a bad idea. The study showed that two months after the second shot of a Pfizer or Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, the antibody response decreases by 20 percent in adults who have had COVID-19 previously. “Many people, and many doctors, are assuming that any prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2 will confer immunity to re-infection. Based on this logic, some people with prior exposure don’t think they need to get vaccinated. Or if they do get vaccinated, they think that they only need the first dose of the two-dose Pfizer/Moderna vaccines,” McDade said in the release.

A new report published earlier this month is shedding new light on the risk of being pregnant and unvaccinated against COVID-19. "We are seeing more pregnant individuals coming in with severe COVID-19 disease that is severe enough to require intensive care unit, admission and intubation," health disparities scholar and IPR associate Melissa Simon said, calling it "concerning, because we're talking about not just the health of the pregnant person themselves but also the fetus." "This is really serious," Simon continued. "The numbers are increasing, and we could prevent that — the vaccinations could prevent that."

No catch-up strategy can possibly benefit all students. But studies do point toward which strategies are most effective, how they can best be implemented — and what approaches might be a waste of time and money. Here’s a rundown of the most relevant research. Research points to intensive daily tutoring as one of the most effective ways to help academically struggling children catch up. Education researchers have a particular kind of tutoring in mind, what they call “high-dosage” tutoring. Studies show it has produced big achievement gains for students when the tutoring occurs every day or almost every day. Less frequent tutoring, by contrast, was not as helpful as many other types of educational interventions. “It’s not once-a-week homework help,” IPR economist Jonathan Guryan said.

“After the past year’s fierce partisan battles over mask requirements and shutdown orders, many have speculated that the pandemic has made Americans even more polarized than they were before. Did polarization increase during the onset of covid-19? Our research suggests that an important type of partisan polarization — affective polarization, or how strongly Americans dislike and distrust adherents of the “other” party relative to those of their own party — actually decreased during the first stages of the pandemic,” writes IPR political scientist James Druckman.

Hunger around America is improving, compared with a month ago, according to the most recent U.S. census data. But food insecurity has a long way to go before returning to pre-pandemic levels. “Everyone’s question should be: Will we see [food insecurity] plateau here or continue to improve? I expect it to continue to improve because the economy is getting better. But poor people are hit worst by recessions, and it takes them longer to recover,” IPR director and economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach said.

Some of the people hit hardest by the pandemic-induced economic crisis were mothers without the option of working from home. But that disparity is not a fluke. For years now, it’s been easier for parents whose jobs can be done remotely to juggle work and child care. The technological revolution of work is transforming family life—but not for everyone. And this digital divide is altering not just the number of kids people are having, but who is having them. “Being able to work from home gives you a lot more flexibility. And flexibility is something you really want to have if you have a family, because things happen … Kids get sick, they have school performances,” economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke said.

“Even though I might not be able to convince somebody, they can understand why I take the position that I take,” said Javan Rankines, after his pro-vaccine talk dampened the mood at the shop last Thursday. Rankines is one of 15 Camden barbers recruited by the Center for Family Services, a local nonprofit, and Rutgers University-Camden to act as a trusted messenger. The thinking goes: Someone like Rankines is more likely to convince his neighbor or customer who is on the fence about the vaccine than an incentive, which new data finds weren’t as effective at boosting vaccinations as once thought. “To effect change, really encourage people to take up vaccination behaviors, we have to meet them where they’re at,” said David Rapp, psychologist and IPR associate.

Videos showing first-year college students preparing for sorority recruitment events have gone viral, with the hashtag #RushTok taking over TikTok and other platforms. The videos show young women at different schools preparing for Greek life events during the time on campuses widely known as “rush.” “These videos are appealing to people in the same way that reality TV shows are appealing,” said Simone Ispa-Landa, IPR education sociologist.

‘The question was straightforward enough; it was the answer that proved more revealing. When a local reporter asked Representative Glenn Grothman, a Wisconsin Republican, whether he had been vaccinated against COVID-19, he replied, “I don’t like to get into taking sides on it.” He then walked out of the camera frame. As a Trump loyalist, with a ninety-six-per-cent rating from the American Conservative Union, Grothman is an unsurprising opponent of vaccine mandates. After a town-hall meeting in Green Lake—just seven miles from the birthplace of the Republican Party—which was held outdoors, owing to the Delta variant, he stood on the grass and said, “I’m not going to play doctor,”’ writes associate professor of journalism and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

New census results out this week show the United States is becoming more diverse and multiracial. Headlines say the country's white population is in decline. “On average, when they read about a declining white population, they tend to get concerned about what we call sort of the status of their group,” said Jennifer Richeson, faculty adjunct. “You know, will they continue to have political representation? They tend to really feel a sense of anxiety that their fortunes might be in jeopardy.

“Once a decade, the U.S. Census Bureau undertakes the massive challenge of counting every single person in the nation. We’re all asked to share sensitive information about ourselves—such as race, sex, and date of birth—which the bureau then uses to publish aggregate statistics about the population. Published statistics are meant to be anonymous. But what if it’s possible to use the published numbers to reconstruct the raw data? After the 2010 Census, the bureau looked into how well an attacker might be able to reconstruct the underlying data from the 2010 Census given its privacy protections. The results were troubling: Someone could correctly recover census block (that is, location), sex, ethnicity, and age (plus or minus one year) for 71 percent of the population,” computer scientist, journalism professor and IPR associate Jessica Hullman writes.

“I pride myself on coming from a place of “yes.” So it was uncharacteristic that, when my department head asked me to share my experiences of homophobia at a recent virtual diversity town hall for faculty, my first reaction was to decline. He did not know what had happened to me just the week before. I was out for a run when an SUV pulled up next to me. A young man rolled down his window, hung his head out, yelled “faggot"* at me, and laughed as the SUV drove away. I said nothing. I wish I had shouted, “This kind of bullying is the reason 20% of gay teens attempt suicide” in the hope that it might help him understand the implications of his actions. But in that moment, I wasn’t Dr. Mustanski, leader of an LGBTQ health research institute. I was just the same Brian who had been called “fag” countless times—and had learned in such situations it was safer to keep quiet,” writes Brian Mustanski, professor of medical social sciences and IPR associate.

The percentage of American families with kids who report not having enough to eat fell dramatically after the first child tax credit payments were distributed last month, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. “It is great news that the estimated rate of hunger among those with children is at a pandemic low,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, IPR director and economist, who has been closely tracking food hardship rates throughout the pandemic.

Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine is currently only authorized for emergency use in the United States, but its full approval by the US Food and Drug Administration could happen within weeks. Full approval of a Covid-19 vaccine requires much more data, including safety and efficacy data generated in the real-world, outside of a clinical trial. The CDC has been tracking real-world data on the vaccines and more than 165 million people in the US are now vaccinated against the virus. "If you ever want to get beyond 70% threshold of people who have gotten a vaccination so far, you need to have carrots and you have to have sticks," said Eric Nisbet, communication, policy scholar and IPR associate. "The only way to do that is the mandate. Authorization takes out one of the impediments to more widespread mandates."

Among Americans who have yet to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, Republicans have been most consistently hesitant. The gap in vaccination rates between counties that voted for Joe Biden and those that voted for Donald Trump has only widened over time. Until recently, prominent figures in the party have largely remained silent about vaccination. But a growing number of Republican elected officials have finally begun publicly promoting vaccination. IPR political scientist James Druckman found that when Republican leaders encourage vaccination, everyday Republicans report being more likely to get the vaccine.

Just before dusk on a muggy night in late June, an SUV crept toward a crowd waiting outside a fast food joint on an otherwise quiet commercial strip in South Shore. A hail of gunfire followed, striking six people before the shooter was whisked away in the passing vehicle. While police say the shooters were targeting members of a rival gang, 23-year-old Kristina Grimes — a bystander apparently caught in the fray — was the only one killed, her body riddled with six bullets. In both cases, there was a large number of witnesses and surviving victims, yet no arrests have been made. That is all too common in Chicago, where police say they do not prioritize the cases despite the especially harsh toll such shootings have on a community. “The irony is, urban violence is more preventable, but we don’t invest the funds,” said Linda Teplin, behavioral scientist and IPR associate professor. “What is needed is economic investment, jobs, access to educational opportunities, therapy. We know what needs to be done, but we won’t invest the funds.”

The vaccine mandate movement is growing. Federal workers will have to get vaccinated or get weekly COVID-19 tests. Similar mandates are happening in California and New York. There’s also a long list of universities, hospitals, and, increasingly, private corporations that are making the move, most recently Walmart. But there’s a catch: The company is going to require vaccines for corporate employees but not retail workers. Most employers have been doing what they can to encourage workers to get vaccinated. Now, virus variants are helping make their case. “I think delta has really been a game-changer,” said management professor and IPR associate Lauren Rivera.

So often, our language around romantic love makes it feel like it's out to get us: we're captive passengers on a high-speed train to an unknown destination; jolly patients of the same contagious, all-consuming malady; victims of some inescapable, omnipotent force. "We are really looking for not just someone who's going to split the load of paying the bills and raising children," says Mandy Len Catron, citing social psychologist and IPR associate Eli Finkel's book The All or Nothing Marriage, "But we're looking for someone who is going to be a great domestic partner, a great sex partner, someone who's our intellectual peer, someone who's going to help us become the best version of ourselves."

“The image of professors’ reading from their long-yellowed notes isn’t one I recognize in our faculty or in myself. Our disciplines evolve, and so do we. In the course of my own pedagogical journey, which includes 42 consecutive years in the undergraduate classroom, I’ve adapted my teaching for several reasons. For one, theories and methodological approaches come and go. Moreover, the interests of students change over time, and so do the most pressing policy issues affecting the nation and the world. Finally, to teach the same thing over and over again throughout a career would drive any of us crazy,” writes Northwestern president and IPR economist Morton Schapiro.

Data being compiled by the University of Chicago Crime Lab and shared with the Tribune suggests that such a strong reaction might not be so far off the mark, and that the perception that violence in Chicago is as bad now as it has been in years is fair. The lab’s analysis of Chicago Police Department information shows that the pain and harm caused by a crime spike that began in 2020 is more acute in some of Chicago’s most vulnerable neighborhoods, echoing what has been concluded in other reports and in the experience of residents alike: Those Chicago neighborhoods have borne the disproportionate brunt of gun violence. “The magnitude of the absolute crime gap is still disturbingly large and since 2006 seems to be widening,” IPR sociologist Andy Papachristos wrote at the time.

Every Friday morning at a food storage center in the Heart of Chicago, a white van emblazoned with a rainbow and the words “Dion’s Chicago Dream” is packed with more than a hundred boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables, to be delivered to 120 households across Chicago. And although its operations resemble Amazon’s vans or other food delivery services, the difference is that the food from Dion’s Chicago Dream is free. The Englewood nonprofit was started in August 2020 by lifelong Englewood resident Dion Dawson. According to IPR anthropologist Sera Young, food pantries are good for providing nonperishables that are dense in calories, such as oil, flour, and peanut butter. But there is equal need for fresh produce, said Young.

The White House has been sharply critical of how social media has helped circulate misinformation about coronavirus vaccines. President Biden put it bluntly when he said, “They’re killing people.” The day after Biden’s statement, Facebook posted a blog entry asserting that it isn’t responsible for U.S. vaccination rates leveling off. The company emphasized that, in a large survey by Carnegie Mellon, supported by Facebook, 85 percent of Facebook users reported being vaccinated or wanting to be vaccinated. IPR political scientist James Druckman addressed his group’s findings that people who rely on Facebook for coronavirus news have lower vaccination rates than other Americans.

Americans are freaked out about crime in the United States. As many as eight in 10 say it’s a major problem. They rank it ahead of health care and poverty, perennial priorities. Solid majorities believe that crime is worse today than it was 30 years ago, which is not even close to true, despite record increases in homicides in 2020. “Violent crime in particular is hugely concentrated,” Wesley Skogan, a political scientist at the Institute for Policy, wrote the Atlantic in an email.

As Chicago, along with the rest of the U.S., has entered into full reopening coming out of the pandemic, there has been an onslaught of resignations. The proportion of Americans who quit their jobs in April reached its highest level in more than 20 years, according to data from the Labor Department. Lauren Rivera, a professor at Kellogg School of Management and IPR associate, said the transition period coming out of the height of the pandemic has likely opened doors for people to think about what they really want or need out of their job.

Hundreds of dollars began arriving in parents’ bank accounts Thursday, as the first installment of the Biden administration’s monthly child tax credit. Although the new tax credit is a large increase for low earners, higher earners end up receiving the same amount annually that they would have in previous years — with half of it coming earlier in monthly installments. Still, it’s likely to make a difference in what they do with it, researchers said. “You sort of have your mental accounts — this is money I spend on food, this is money for the kids,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, IPR director and economist.

As companies in Illinois call workers back to offices, some may face a new challenge: employees who became addicted to drugs or alcohol during the pandemic. During the early months of the pandemic, drug and alcohol use increased sharply. In Cook County, the average number of opioid overdose deaths rose nearly 26% during Illinois’ first stay-at-home order in spring 2020, according to a study by IPR associates Maryann Mason and Joe Feinglass.

For the first half of 2021 — as of the end of the second quarter in June — $150 billion has been invested in startups from seed-stage to late-stage companies, according to new data from the National Venture Capital Association. Moving up the pipeline to fundamental scientific R&D, there’s also trouble, said Kellogg professor and IPR associate Ben Jones. “Public investment in research and development for the United States is at its lowest level in the last 70 years,” he said.

“A key tenet of the Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework is that racism is “normal,” meaning that it is so widespread and deeply embedded in daily life in the U.S. that we often don’t even see it. CRT is the opposite of colorblindness. CRT recognizes that America was built on racism—setting up a society in which those who were identified as “not white” did not have equal rights, opportunities, or legal standing. CRT teaches the truth of this racial history and how it influences us today,” writes IPR developmental psychologist Onnie Rogers.

Social media posts share a graphic saying Donald Trump lost as many jobs during his time as president as Joe Biden gained in his first five months in office. But experts say it is misleading because it does not acknowledge the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic or the limits of a president's ability to affect the economy. "It's irresponsible to make this claim without putting it into context," said IPR political science John Bullock. "Trump left office when the pandemic was at its height. Biden took office just before we saw a massive increase in vaccination. And that, above all, is why we've seen a rapid increase in employment," Bullock said.

In an effort to fight the potentially harmful effect of unrealistic beauty standards on mental health, Norway recently became the latest country to pass regulations targeting manipulated images. The use of filters and editing on digital media, for instance, “build on practices that long predate” technology, such as makeup, said Pablo Boczkowski, a media scholar and IPR associate. “It is important to try to address the causes of what is problematic rather than the symptoms, because sometimes, when you address the symptoms without addressing the causes, the symptoms just move around.”

Many Americans felt socially isolated during the pandemic, cut off from friends and family as they hunkered down and kept their distance to try to protect themselves from infection. But new research by researchers at Harvard, Northeastern, Northwestern and Rutgers, including IPR political scientist James Druckman, released Thursday suggests many people’s sense of isolation increased even as the public health crisis in the United States began to abate, with communities opening up and the economy improving. While the level of social isolation declined during the spring of the pandemic after the initial shock of the crisis subsided, it then increased sharply over the summer months last year before leveling off during the fall.

The Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer program, which allows families who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch to collect additional SNAP benefits throughout remote and hybrid learning, is being extended during the summer. “Just frankly it’s a straightforward solution to make sure that kids have enough to eat,” said IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach, who studies child poverty. She said not only will these benefits get more kids fed, it gives families the independence to shop sales and eat what they like. You know how picky kids can be.

Has feminism made any difference in young women's lives? In our forthcoming article in Contexts, we have tried to answer this question for college women who join historically white sororities. We compare the data from the 1970s to now, a difference of half a century. The women themselves are different: They are now more career-oriented, and sorority rush reflects that change, as women are expected to talk about their intellectual, academic, or artistic “passions” during rush. Yet, the old norms remain, write IPR sociologist Simone Ispa-Landa and Barbara J. Risman.

Childcare is one of the biggest expenses and worries of families in this country. Governor Pritzker is making permanent a pandemic policy of $1 per month child care for families living in poverty. He’s also capping child care costs for families with incomes up to 250 percent above the federal poverty level. Reset examines how this could benefit families and the state’s post-pandemic economic recovery, and spoke to IPR developmental psychologist Terri Sabol about her research on childcare.

“Donald Trump’s declaration that he was going to build a “great, great wall” at the southern border and that Mexico was going to pay for it, a pledge he repeated hundreds of times, was one of his most easily debunked 2016 campaign-trail whoppers. His Administration struggled to construct about fifty miles of new barrier, at a cost of billions of dollars to U.S. taxpayers, which some migrants managed to scale with handmade wooden ladders. But that didn’t stop Greg Abbott, the two-term governor of Texas, who is seeking reelection next year, from vowing last month to build a wall of his own. Texas, he said, would contribute two hundred and fifty million dollars from the public treasury and use crowdfunding to help pay for the rest. The idea is as illogical and unaffordable as ever, but Abbott isn’t as interested in building a wall as he is in constructing a winning campaign message,” writes associate professor of journalism and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

A gallon of gasoline is the most expensive it has been in seven years, but the once-potent economic indicator doesn’t seem to be putting pressure on President Joe Biden’s energy policies—in part because gas prices hit Democrats and Republicans differently. “For people who understand it as a supply and demand issue, they don’t see the president as responsible for the rise,” said IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong, the primary author of the 2016 study on gas prices and presidential approval. “It’s not like the president can put his finger on the button and make gas prices go up or down.”

June 2021 was much better than June 2020. June 2021 saw a double digit decrease in murders compared to June 2020, marking the third month in a row that Chicago saw a decline. But criminology experts argue using the violent pandemic year as a benchmark misses the overall picture. “It is a comparison point, but it’s not a high bar,” said Northwestern professor Wesley Skogan. Skogan, who studies crime policy and policing, said violent crime levels are still bad. “The concern on my part is that 2020 is a terrible benchmark,” Skogan said. “It tied for the third highest spiking in the homicide rate in Chicago’s modern history.”

The share of Americans saying they “sometimes” or “often” do not have enough to eat was falling steadily this year, but progress began stalling in late April, worrying experts who had expected a further decline in hunger and are instead seeing numbers start to tick up again. “There clearly are still lots of pockets of people that are facing real hardship,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, economist and director at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research. “The most recent hunger numbers ticked up a little bit. You start reading the tea leaves, which is all you can do right now, but it is making me nervous. We need the economy to take back off.”

The share of Americans saying they “sometimes” or “often” do not have enough to eat was falling steadily this year, but progress began stalling in late April, worrying experts who had expected a further decline in hunger and are instead seeing numbers start to tick up again. “There clearly are still lots of pockets of people that are facing real hardship,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, economist and director at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research. “The most recent hunger numbers ticked up a little bit. You start reading the tea leaves, which is all you can do right now, but it is making me nervous. We need the economy to take back off.”

The tech industry has sometimes been on the vanguard with paternity leave, and the research in Norway offers a new perspective on why that may be: Many tech companies are fast growing, so they have more room for employees to move up the ranks. When career advancement is less zero sum among co-workers, the paternity leave penalty is naturally smaller. The lesson from the Norwegian study is not that we need to make every company grow faster. It is that there is no fundamental reason for paternity leave to hurt a man’s career. The solution is not only to make paid paternity leave a legal mandate but to encourage it sufficiently so that it becomes commonplace, writes IPR economist Seema Jayachandran.

Historically, IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos notes, many police corruption and misconduct scandals in big cities across the country have centered on teams of officers, rather than solitary bad actors. “What happens in those cases is you cover for each other, you plan with each other,” Papachristos said. Because of these group patterns, the sociologist asserts, it is fair for authorities to use network mapping to identify potential collective deviance. “You can get a glimpse of, potentially, folks that are involved in those sorts of crews of cops by doing these sorts of analysis,” he said.

In his New York Times column, Thomas Edsall asks if education is no longer “a great equalizer of the conditions of men,” as Horace Mann declared in 1848, but instead a great divider? Can the Biden administration’s efforts to distribute cash benefits to the working class and the poor produce sustained improvements in the lives of those on the bottom tiers of income and wealth — or would a substantial investment in children’s training and enrichment programs at a very early age produce more consistent and permanent results? Economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke said, "In the U.S., the big achievement gaps across lines of race or social class open up very early, before kindergarten, rather than during college. So for reducing overall human capital inequality, building high quality early child care and preschool would be the first place to start."

Establishing that the world of college sports is subject to antitrust regulations could also potentially lead to direct compensation in the form of salaries. A working paper published last year by healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite and three other economists imagines what college athletics would look like if it operated as a free market. It finds that college stars would be paid substantial sums.

Reentering public spaces can put many of us on edge. Filling public spaces with people again—people who have weathered the last year in different ways—may increase the likelihood of incidents of chaos, said psychiatrist and behavioral scientist and IPR associate Crystal Clark. "Now that the world is reopened, we may see less patience, more irritability, less stress tolerance because people have been trying to hold it together for so long," said Clark.

The cost of caring for America’s nearly 6 million Alzheimer’s disease patients is already $600 billion a year, factoring in the cost of uncompensated caregiving. Now, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug treatment that may or may not work but is set to cost $56,000 a year for the average patient — a charge that in most instances will fall to Medicare. Medicare should not simply cover this treatment indiscriminately. Instead, it should evaluate whether paying for it stands to help its beneficiaries, write healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite and Peter B. Bach.

The vast majority of editors at leading medical journals are white — with few of those influential spots going to Black or Hispanic professionals, a new study finds. The figures came as no surprise to health disparities scholar and IPR associate Melissa Simon. Simon, who was not involved in the study, said lack of representation is a long-standing problem not only at medical journals, but along the whole "pipeline" that leads to research being published, or not published. That process includes an array of "gatekeepers," Simon explained, including those who decide what research gets funded, and the peer reviewers who evaluate the scientific quality of studies submitted to journals.

Deaths of wage earners add to the hardships minority communities are already experiencing during the pandemic. One in five Black and Hispanic Americans reported being behind on their rent or mortgage in April, compared with 7.5 percent of white Americans. One in five Black and Hispanic adults in households with children said they did not have enough to eat in the previous week, compared with 6.4 percent of white Americans, according to analyses of census surveys by IPR Director and economist Diane Schanzenbach.

The study used sleep data gathered from wrist activity monitors worn by more than 85,000 participants of the UK Biobank Study, which houses in-depth genetic and health information on more than a half a million Brits. Researchers compared that sleep information to self-reports of mood and found that people with a misaligned sleep cycle more likely to report depression, anxiety and have fewer feelings of well-being. "The health problems associated with being a night owl are likely a result of being a night owl living in a morning person's world, which leads to disruption in their body's circadian rhythms," said neurologist and IPR associate Kristen Knutson, who was not involved in the study.

"People with diabetes, but not sleep disturbances, were 67% more likely to die compared to people with neither diabetes or sleep issues, and 87% more likely to die if they had both diabetes and frequent sleep disturbances," said neurologist and IPR associate Kristen Knutson, who led the study. After controlling for medical and lifestyle issues that might also affect sleep, such as age, gender, weight, smoking, depression and other preexisting conditions, the study found that people who slept poorly but did not have diabetes were 11% more likely to die within the nine-year followup period of the study than people without diabetes who slept well.

IPR Director and economist Diane Schanzenbach said she’s optimistic that the current momentum both outside and within the charitable food world could finally start yanking food insecurity out by its roots. That said, neither she nor Martin nor Cohen believe the need for the charitable food system will disappear anytime soon. “Lower-income people always suffer longer during recessions and for them, recovery is slower,” Schanzenbach pointed out. “I’m telling my friends in the charity food sector and anyone else who will listen that we’re still going to see elevated need for a while.”

Brave Space Alliance is hoping to collect data from over 30,000 transgender people in Cook County about their experiences, lives and needs with the Chicago Area Trans Survey. BSA is partnering with Northwestern University for the survey. "Our team that's going to be working on this will be primarily trans individuals who can also bring in the combination of academic and lived experience," said Gregory Phillips II, an assistant professor of medical social sciences and IPR associate. This project comes as the rights of trans people are under attack in states across the country. They plan to launch a census style canvassing team and a digital campaign to reach as many people as possible.

According to a 2014 study by IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong, Neil Malhotra, and Brian F. Harrison, respondents preferred legislation when their party got more of what it wanted and when it dominated the coalition that passed the bill versus the outcomes that were more bipartisan-oriented. In fact, respondents sometimes viewed bipartisan tradeoffs as the equivalent of a legislative defeat for their party

The top editor of JAMA, the influential medical journal, stepped down on Tuesday amid a controversy over comments about racism made by a colleague on a journal podcast. But critics saw in the incident something more pernicious than a single misstep: a blindness to structural racism and the ways in which discrimination became embedded in medicine over generations. Dr. Melissa Simon, who is Latina, submitted her research into high death rates among pregnant Black women to JAMA for consideration last summer. Dr. Bauchner cut the word “racism” from the manuscript and watered down the conclusions, she said. After many rounds of revisions, the paper was rejected. Dr. Simon was flummoxed. “You cannot talk about maternal mortality without racism,” she said. “You just can’t, in the United States of America.”

The supply of women in the labor force, compared with men, fell in 18 of the 28 countries. But the gender gaps in employment widened the most in Canada and the U.S., said Matthias Doepke, an author of the study and an economist and IPR associate. One of the more unexpected findings in Mr. Doepke’s study was that among the major developed countries, including the U.S., Canada and the U.K., the gender gap in economic participation widened more among parents with school-age children than among those with younger children.

There’s long been anecdotal evidence that the Classic Chicago Accent, the traditional dialect of the city’s white ethnics, is in decline. The Chicagoland Language Project, founded in 2017 by linguists and IPR associate Annette D’Onofrio and Sharese King at the University of Chicago, conducted a study of white speakers in Beverly and Morgan Park. Its conclusions: the Northern Cities Vowel Shift—the linguistic phenomenon that causes speakers in the Great Lakes region to pronounce “trap” as “tray-ep” and “lot” as “lahhht”—is declining in the younger generation. The reason may be related to the neighborhood’s integration, and its more progressive attitudes on race.

Several states—including Georgia, Michigan, Florida, and Hawaii—and school districts have issued or are considering such “thank you” payments to teachers. The bonuses are meant as recognition for educators’ work through the pandemic—whether that included teaching in-person and virtually at the same time, dealing with frequent quarantines, or seeing their schedules repeatedly upended—and as a way of encouraging teachers to stick with the profession. “In the ideal, I would prefer that additional money that is spent on teachers is somehow tied in some way to improving outcomes for kids,” said IPR economist Kirabo Jackson.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday defended her decision to grant interviews on her two-year anniversary in office only to journalists of color, saying it was intended as an effort to confront the issue of what she described as a mostly white and male City Hall press corps. Charles Whitaker, dean at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and IPR associate, said journalists of color trying to break into the political press corps have faced barriers for decades. But while he applauded Lightfoot’s motivation, he said the one-time interview restrictions felt more like a “stunt” and don’t address the root of an age-old problem. “I don’t necessarily know that it is the best way,” Whitaker said in a phone interview. “We would never, ever in a million years allow that of a white politician. And so it’s dangerous now to say we are going to allow that of a Black politician simply to make a point about the historic inequities in media.”

"What America urgently needs is community violence prevention infrastructure, a system of physical, social, political and financial connections among community violence preventionists that can support, develop and sustain on-the-ground efforts to reduce gun violence. As with all public goods, such a system will require public investment and long-term commitments from government at all levels, as well as from community institutions," writes IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos and Daniel Webster.

But as bad as it was, the scale of the hardship would have been far worse without the abundant government response. Researchers at Columbia University found that the federal aid kept 18 million Americans out of poverty last April and 13 million in January. The image of Americans lining up at food banks is, appropriately, seared on our collective memory, and measures of food insecurity did rise in the pandemic. But government aid almost certainly saved far more people from hunger, says Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an IPR economist who has studied food insecurity during the pandemic. She notes that data from the Census Bureau shows rates of hunger dropping sharply after government aid checks arrived in January and March.

For many Americans, trust is in short supply after a year of a long pandemic and the conflicts that have come with it. Eli Finkel, a psychology professor and IPR associate, who has studied romantic relationships and American politics, said that trusting one another inherently involves a gamble—whether it is letting your guard down in a marriage, or trusting the behavior of fellow citizens during a pandemic. Still, he said, trust is often essential for society to move forward. “It’s a willingness to allow yourself to be vulnerable with the hope that life will be better for having done so,” Finkel said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted almost every aspect of our lives, including our ability to afford food. Rates of food insecurity skyrocketed during the pandemic due to high unemployment numbers and the economic recession. Now, though, with vaccines more widespread and the economy beginning to get back on track, those rates are on the decline. Illinois Newsroom’s Dana Cronin spoke with Diane Schanzenbach, Director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, about how families are faring now that the pandemic’s end is in sight.

Dr. Nia Heard-Garris, a pediatrician and a researcher at Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, said that she understands parents’ hesitations. “That kind of conversation has been present before we had a feasible vaccine, especially from groups that have been marginalized and experimented on. It’s not a fear that’s far-fetched,” she said. But Dr. Heard-Garris said she trusts the science and the data, and that the abstract fears of the vaccine’s long-term effects should be weighed against the real-life impacts of the virus.

President Joe Biden's hopes of restoring bipartisanship to Washington, D.C. may have already been dashed as Republicans on Capitol Hill show little sign of backing his agenda. Biden repeatedly called for a bipartisan approach to governing during last year's White House campaign. However, experts on bipartisanship have told Newsweek that while there might be parts of Biden's agenda that Republicans could support, it appears unlikely the GOP will lend Democrats their votes any time soon. Laurel Harbridge-Yong, IPR political scientist and co-author of the book Rejecting Compromise, said there might not be an appetite for compromise in either party. "Whether or not Biden's plans—and legislative politics more broadly—garners bipartisan support depends on both the willingness of Democrats and Republicans to compromise," Harbridge-Yong said.

Last year, U.S. births dropped to their lowest level in more than 40 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The drop was not surprising, said Christine Percheski, IPR social demographer who studies demographic changes and family patterns. “This is the sixth year in a row we’ve seen a decline,” Percheski said. “The declines were biggest among the youngest mothers. So we had a very sharp decline among teen mothers, and that’s continuing a trend that’s about 15 years old now, and most of us think that’s good news.”

The percentage of Americans struggling with hunger is now at its lowest level since the pandemic began, suggesting the recent flood in aid from Washington is making a significant difference to families struggling economically. Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week shows the percentage of adults living in households that sometimes or often did not have enough to eat dipped to just over 8 percent late last month, down from nearly 11 percent in March. That is a substantial drop, and it came after hundreds of billions in stimulus checks went out. “Money helps,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist and director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, who has been tracking hunger rates closely throughout the pandemic. “We’re continuing to see signs of progress. That’s exciting. That’s good news.”

The Biden administration came out on Wednesday in support of waiving intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines, siding with international efforts to bolster production amid concerns about vaccine access in developing nations. Craig Garthwaite, a professor of strategy at the Kellogg School of Management and IPR associate, said he worried that the move would “signal that we, at a certain point, will not respect I.P. if the global health need becomes big enough,” using the initials for intellectual property. “I worry about Covid-20,” he added.

Companies are more prone to cheating employees of color and immigrant workers, according to IPR political scientist Daniel Galvin. His research, based on data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, shows that immigrants and Latino workers were twice as likely to earn less than the minimum wage from 2009 to 2019 compared with white Americans. Black workers were nearly 50% more likely to get ripped off in comparison. Galvin reports in his forthcoming book, “Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers’ Rights,” that the lowest-paid workers lost roughly $1.67 per hour—about 21% of their income — to wage theft from 2009 to 2019.

Northwestern University management professor and IPR associate Eli Finkel explains how his expertise in studying marriages relates to America's political divides. "We've basically built the most toxic marriage, the most toxic union, if you will, that I can imagine," he says, imagining how a marital therapist might tackle the strife. He says the media has contributed to the political divide in the United States with hyper-partisan content. "One of the reasons I'm most hopefully is we are battling phantoms," he says as he explains that Americans are not as divided as they seem on social media. "We have a grossly distorted perspective of what the other side actually believes."

A microbiome gap is evident even in nonpandemic times. “Generally, communities of lower socioeconomic status tend to have less diverse microbiomes,” says Katherine Amato, an anthropologist and IPR associate. In its most extreme form, this paucity is known as “dysbiosis” and is strongly associated with metabolic and autoimmune disorders. But the research is just beginning to scratch the surface in terms of microbial disparities, Amato says. “Things like stress, diet, shift work, and disturbances in circadian rhythms can have negative impacts on the microbiome.” Baseline inequities that affect the microbiome are clearly playing into the disparities in who’s dying of COVID-19. Whether the microbiome itself is a factor in those outcomes remains to be seen.

After more than a year of hunkering down during the pandemic, many people who've been vaccinated for COVID-19 are feeling a little safer about stepping out. This is great for adults. But the vaccine isn't presently available to people under the age of 16—children. "What I'll say is that outdoor play dates are probably the safest right now, especially for unvaccinated children," said Dr. Nia Heard-Garris, pediatrician and researcher at Northwestern University’s School of Medicine. "Indoor play dates are a significantly higher risk. And so if you're trying to organize a play date with multiple households, my strong recommendation is that it would be outside with kids wearing a mask and vaccinated adults."

"As part of the latest COVID-19 relief package, the federal government has expanded the child tax credit and made it available to all families with children except those with the highest incomes. If the government extends this benefit beyond the one year that’s currently funded, as many members of Congress and the Biden administration would like, this policy has the potential to dramatically cut child poverty by as much as 50%. But we do believe that this policy, especially if it takes hold for the long term, will meaningfully improve millions of children’s lives and give them a much better start in life," writes IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach, Hilary Hoynes, and Melissa S. Kearney.

More than 100 days after a violent siege at the U.S. Capitol that was meant to disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden's election, Congress continues to mull whether it will create a 9/11 Commission-style independent body to study what happened on January 6. "The further we've gotten from it, the more both sides have moved into their own narratives on what 1/6 was about," IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong told Newsweek. "The way many Democrats see the correct findings of a commission would be painting the Republican Party in a negative light. I don't think the Republican Party has any interest in doing that."

"On the same day that a Minneapolis jury declared police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd, a police officer shot and killed 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio. Ma’Khia had called the police for help. U.S. police arrest, jail and assault Black girls regularly with very little national fanfare. When Black girls’ punitive experiences garner national attention, they are often framed as one-off events, or blamed on individual institutions such as the police or schools. But my new research finds that a majority of White Americans hold race and gender stereotypes of Black girls and support the disproportionate punishments inflicted on them," writes IPR social policy expert Sally Nuamah.

Researchers at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research, including IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade and professor of medical social sciences and associate IPR Brian Mustanski say a new study has indicated that one dose of two-dose COVID-19 vaccines does not provide sufficient protection against the virus in individuals who had previously had mild or asymptomatic cases of the disease, meaning that those individuals are still advised to get both doses of the vaccine. The study had examined whether individuals who had previous mild or asymptomatic cases of the coronavirus could achieve a high-level of immunity with only one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, rather than the recommended two doses.

"As professors at Northwestern University who research how to ensure water security for all, we are working on democratizing water testing by developing a new kind of test for drinking water that is rapid, cheap and accurate; and on quantifying water insecurity globally. The intention is to implement this new water test into a format that nonscientists can easily use; one that is affordable and gives results within an hour for those who need them most. The technology is far from ready to sell; there is still much work to do to ensure that the lead tests are maximally user friendly," write IPR anthropologist Sera Young and Julius Lucks.

For Morgan Haney, 23, not even a degree in a still-thriving field was enough to land a full-time job. She graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2020 with a double major in integrated strategic communications and merchandising apparel and textiles. When her campus closed last March, she moved home with her family in Atlanta. After a few months of job searching with no luck, she found a sales-associate position at a boutique fitness studio that she never expected to love. She’s no longer just slogging through the job for some cash, though—she genuinely enjoys it. Haney’s willingness to deviate from her plan aligns with the idea that people who graduate during a recession might learn to be flexible, says IPR economist Hannes Schwandt. He told me that when he looked at how Great Recession graduates are faring now, he saw that they had a slightly lower unemployment rate than their peers who did not graduate into a recession. In Schwandt’s opinion, their adaptability set them up to adjust to tumultuous circumstances later on, like Haney did.

Black families in the US have gone hungry at two to three times the rate of white families over the course of the pandemic, according to new analysis which suggests political squabbling over Covid aid exacerbated a crisis that left millions of children without enough to eat. An investigation into food poverty by the Guardian and Diane Schanzenbach, director of the Institute for Policy Research, found gaping racial inequalities in access to adequate nutrition that threatens the long-term prospects of a generation of Black and brown children.

As more parents get vaccinated ahead of their children, some families are finding themselves with questions that seem to have no clear answers: Is it finally OK to have indoor play dates? Can we take summer vacations, or fly on airplanes? What if my kids are high risk? “We’re seeing so many mental health impacts from Covid-19 on our kids—like anxiety and depression and isolation and loneliness,” said Dr. Nia Heard-Garris, a pediatrician at Northwestern Medicine. So it’s important for families to find ways to safely balance the spending time with others and being safe.

Being jailed puts teens with untreated psychiatric disorders at increased risk for long-term mental health struggles, researchers say. "These are not necessarily bad kids, but they have many strikes against them," said study lead author Linda Teplin. "Physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect are common. These experiences can precipitate depression. Incarceration should be the last resort," explained the behavioral scientist and IPR associate. "Clearly, we must expand mental health services during detention and when these youth return to their communities," she added.

Last month, Evanston catapulted to the forefront of national discussions around what role localities can play in reparations to Black Americans. The North Shore suburb approved the first $400,000 distribution of what ultimately will be a $10 million reparations fund, mainly sourcing from a cannabis sales tax, to help redress historical housing inequities over the next 10 years. “Evanston is a small suburb that is trying to take a big first step in the area of reparations, and I think housing is a good place to start,” said Mary Pattillo, sociologist and African American Studies researcher and IPR associate. “The Black middle class is disproportionately fragile, disproportionately downwardly mobile across generations, and generally has little to no wealth. This kind of assistance is what can stop the trends that we see in intergenerational downward mobility," she said.

EAs COVID-19 vaccine eligibility expands, a growing number of companies say they will require proof of vaccination before opening their doors. The Biden administration is working with private companies to develop standards to prove vaccination status, though as of now it doesn’t have plans to implement a federal program. The legal implications of requiring a vaccine certification depends on whether an entity is public or private, said Daniel Rodriguez, law professor and IPR associate.

Journalist and IPR associated Peter Slevin, a contributing writer with The New Yorker magazine, talks about his recent reporting from Iowa and the Carolinas on the future of the Republican Party. He discusses his conversations with Iowa Republican voters and the toxicity of the Democratic brand at the GOP grassroots level.

The first study showing how pregnant women have been impacted by the pandemic has been made public. Globally, the statistics are very grim. Stillbirths and maternal deaths increased by nearly a third. The data comes from 40 studies spanning 17 countries. "Every time there is a major outbreak like Ebola, what happens is women and children's health go to the wayside," said Dr. Melissa Simon, OBGYN at Northwestern Medicine and IPR associate. Dr. Simon says it happened because hospitals were overburdened with COVID-19 patients and some women may have been reluctant to go to the doctor in fear of COVID. "Resources get shifted and mindsets become fearful of going to the health care system," Dr. Simon said.

Opponents of a law that changed voting rules in Georgia are calling for boycotts of high-profile Georgia based companies, including Delta, Coca-Cola and Home Depot. The legislation's opponents say the companies didn't do enough to defeat the measure. The companies have issued statements saying they support everyone's right to vote, expressing some disappointment with the legislation signed last week by Gov. Brian Kemp. But that statement sparked backlash among bill opponents, who said Delta's comments were too supportive of the bill — highlighting the public-relations minefield the companies find themselves in. "Delta's big mistake was claiming any credit at all, even if it had some positive impact on reducing the worst parts of the bill," said Brayden King, a management professor and IPR associate, who has studied the impact of corporate boycotts.

Mass shootings in Atlanta, Georgia, and Boulder, Colorado, have once again brought questions of gun control to the fore. One possibility with Democrats in power in Washington is a revival of a federal assault weapons ban. The last federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004, but a new study from Northwestern Medicine says that the ten-year ban likely prevented as many as 11 mass shootings, and had it remained in place, as many as 30 more mass shootings could have been prevented. “The big thing about my study that is really different from every other study is I find that if you prevent the access to assault weapons, high capacity magazines, and semi-automatic or rapid-fire guns, it prevents the actual incident itself. All of the other studies have looked at how to reduce the lethality of these events,” said director of Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics and IPR associate Lori Ann Post. “But I find that people don’t even go out and do a mass shooting in the absence of an assault rifle.”

Hernandez is among the more than 1 million Illinoisans who have experienced food hardship since the state largely shut down in March of 2020 due to the spread of COVID-19. According to one expert, the rate of food scarcity has roughly doubled compared to pre-pandemic times. And the picture is even worse when you look at who has been most severely affected: Black and Hispanic households with children.“One of the things that’s really set apart the COVID time period is how many people who are reporting, in the last week we just have not had enough to eat,” said IPR economist and director Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach. “Those rates have been running, over the course of the pandemic, an average of 11% in Illinois, and about 15% in Illinois for families with kids.”

Two more investors have stepped forward in a last-ditch effort to prevent hedge fund Alden Global Capital from taking control of Tribune Publishing, which owns the Chicago Tribune and eight other newspapers. That’s welcome news to journalists and readers who are worried about Alden’s reputation for cutting newsroom staffs to the bone. Charles Whitaker, dean of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and IPR associate, shared in the cautious optimism but said that the papers in the Tribune chain still have tough work ahead of them, even with a more civic-minded owner. “The bottom line is that the business model for newspapers is broken,” Whitaker said. “Their traditional forms of revenue – display advertising, classified advertising–are gone. A subscription model is the model that everyone’s trying to build on.”

Meghan McCain's tenure as co-host on "The View" has ignited controversy–and this week was no different. McCain, the daughter of the late Sen. John McCain spoke about "identity politics" during a discussion about Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill. Her words and the subsequent reaction highlighted the fraught nature of discussing these issues. But experts say we shouldn't shy away from these conversations, and there is a right way to approach these topics. "Recognizing that every one of us is implicated in 'identity politics' is an important first step when talking about it," says Julie Lee Merseth, political scientist and IPR associate.

Three women come together to talk about the isolation and sacrifice that comes with being pregnant during the pandemic. Those women: Irène Mathieu, a pediatrician in Charlottesville, Virginia; Elizabeth Baron, a mental health counselor in New York City; and Ashley Falcon, a fashion stylist who moved from Florida to New York in the early stages of the pandemic. IPR economist Hannes Schwandt predicts the pandemic will coincide with a drop in birth rates.

A year into a pandemic that has killed nearly 21,000 Illinoisans, Gov. JB Pritzker says he feels the highest level of confidence yet the crisis may soon be ending even as support for his COVID-19 strategies appears to be waning. Last April, an analysis of how governors around the country are regarded for their handling of the pandemic showed 63% of Illinoisans surveyed had a positive view of Pritzker’s handling of the pandemic. But by the end of last month, that approval rating had dropped to beneath 45%, according to ongoing polling by a consortium of Northwestern University, including IPR political scientist James Druckman, Northeastern University, Harvard University and Rutgers University. The universities’ polling showed Pritzker rated in the middle of the pack among the nation’s governors, with 26 other states’ chief executives having higher pandemic approval ratings at the end of February.

For some people, adjusting to daylight saving time is as simple as changing the clock on your oven. But the adjustment can leave others feeling foggy and tired. And in some extreme cases, it can lead to a spike in car crashes. “It’s only an hour, but it does seem to have a noticeable effect and that’s because we all have biological clocks that control the rhythms in our body, like alertness and mood,” said Kristen Knutson, professor of neurology and epidemiology and IPR associate. “It takes our bodies a day or two to adjust to any time change.” Knutson recommends turning off your computer or putting your phone away earlier to avoid looking at light when it’s time to go to bed. In the morning, expose yourself to the light outside to help the body adjust.

The average number of people dying of opioid overdoses in the Illinois county that's home to Chicago increased by more than 20% last year while state residents were told to stay at home to curb the spread of COVID-19, according to a new analysis. In the report, published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers from Northwestern University, including research professor and IPR associate Joe Feinglass and director of Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics and IPR associate Lori Ann Post, and the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office examined opioid overdose deaths in relation to a state stay-at-home order that took effect in Illinois on March 21, 2020. The analysis encompassed a subsequent, modified order enacted May 1.

A University of Chicago study released this week found remarkable gains from an intensive, or “high-dosage,” tutoring program tested in 20 Chicago high schools, in which math tutors met during each school day with one or two students at a time. The authors found the program, provided by a Boston-based nonprofit called Saga Education, doubled or tripled how much math students learned, and improved student grades in both math and other subjects. "If we’re right that one of the key reasons why high-dosage tutoring is effective is its ability to personalize instruction, then that has become only more crucial, given the disruptions that kids have experienced because of the pandemic, and how those disruptions have not been borne equally by all kids," co-author IPR economist Jonathan Guryan said.

The latest research findings indicate that those efforts could be among the most effective means of helping students make up for lost time in the classroom. A working paper released today by the National Bureau of Economic Research by IPR economist Jonathan Guryan and co-authors from the University of Chicago Education Lab points to the enormous mathematics gains achieved by high schoolers through the Saga Education tutoring initiative. The effects were found in combined samples including over 5,000 children, suggesting the possibility that they could be further expanded to serve many more students. Across two randomized controlled trials conducted in the 2013–14 and 2014-15 school years, ninth and tenth graders in Chicago who received regular tutoring saw significant improvements on both math test scores and course grades.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a dramatic effect on the status of women in the workforce, or perhaps more accurately out of the workforce. "There is no single definite answer on the cause, but I think that issues such as the limited availability of early affordable child care, lack of parental leave, et cetera, put up bigger barriers to women working in the U.S. compared to other countries," says economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke. "The child tax credit is crucial to helping low-income and middle-class families with the crushing costs of child care and raising children," says IPR sociologist Christine Percheski. "The bill also includes funding to stabilize the child care industry, which is really crucial to helping working parents.

The campaign for child benefits is at least a half-century old and rests on a twofold idea: Children are expensive, and society shares an interest in seeing them thrive. At least 17 wealthy countries subsidize child-rearing for much of the population, with Canada offering up to $4,800 per child each year. But until recently, a broad allowance seemed unlikely in the United States, where policy was more likely to reflect a faith that opportunity was abundant and a belief that aid sapped initiative. In a 2018 analysis of federal spending on children, the economists Hilary W. Hoynes and IPR director Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach found that virtually all the increases since 1990 went to “families with earnings” and those “above the poverty line.”

For people without children, the stimulus package expands the earned income tax credit, which helps supplement wages for the working poor. Many liberals hope these policies can be made permanent so this income boost does not disappear in 2022. The bill also provides more generous subsidies to help people afford health insurance and another attempt to expand Medicaid in states that have not yet done so. “Most of us believe these programs like the child allowance will be made permanent,” said IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach.

The “baby boom” predicted at the beginning of the pandemic is now widely acknowledged to have been a baby bust. The “unromantic” part of fertility is that it’s always primarily been driven by economics, says IPR economist Hannes, who researches the connections between economics and fertility. What appears to be new during COVID, however, is that among wealthier and more financially stable people, fertility actually seems to have shot up. There is no firm data for this yet, and Schwandt said there isn’t likely to be for a while.

A gun industry survey taken in 2020—a record year for sales—noted that Black customers accounted for the largest increase of any racial group. A Northwestern University study by IPR political scientist James Druckman found that while white people bought more firearms overall last year, African Americans made up a disproportionate number of first-time gun buyers.

Experts now know that babies pick up on differences when they’re really, really new. Like, by the time they’re 6 months old, babies brains’ can notice racial differences in the people they encounter. “We know from infant attention studies that babies can distinguish Black faces from white faces,” said IPR developmental psychologist Sandra Waxman, who has spent years studying what babies think and how they learn about the world around them. “They can distinguish females from males.” And babies show a strong “looking preference” for the types of faces they’re exposed to most often, Waxman said.

The United States allows more than 10 million American children to live in poverty, bereft of resources and opportunity. The wealthiest nation on earth does less than almost every other developed nation to help children who grow up in low-income families. A 2016 study by economist and IPR associate Joe Ferrie examined the lives of children whose families received federal aid as part of an early 20th century federal program called Mothers’ Pension. The study concluded that these children stayed in school longer than their peers and found higher-paying jobs after graduating.

A new report from Apartment List shows millennials drove much of the pandemic housing boom in 2020, buying more properties than any other age group. But they still lag behind where other previous generations were at a similar age. Student loan debt, high housing prices and career setbacks from the Great Recession hurt millennials’ ability to accumulate wealth. And the pandemic has deepened inequality among millennials, said IPR sociologist Christine Percheski. “The millennials is our most racially and ethnically diverse cohort,” she said.

In the best of circumstances, people naturally gravitate to their underlying core beliefs and spin information to agree with those beliefs, said psychologist and IPR associate David N. Rapp. For example, if people think government is corrupt, they are more likely to believe there could be widespread election fraud. Our brains also give information more weight the more times we see it, the more effort other people expend to give us information, and how much we already think something is true.

Though parents may worry about letting their kids confront unvarnished reality in programs like Lockdown and My Stay-at-Home Diary, research shows that watching tough stuff play out on the screen can build kids’ emotional resilience. “The insights kids gain when they understand their own experiences and those of others teaches coping skills kids need now, and that will benefit them when this is all over,” says communications studies researcher and IPR associate Ellen Wartella.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker wants to close $932 million of what he called “corporate tax loopholes” to help Illinois balance its budget after the fiscal ruins of COVID-19, but the controversial proposal comes as cities and states gear up to attract jobs and strengthen an economy battered by the pandemic. Pritzker’s proposal also would reverse the repeal, which had only just begun, of Illinois’ corporate franchise tax, a tax on any company doing business in Illinois. The tax is complicated to comply with and most states don’t charge one, IPR associate and Kellogg professor Therese McGuire said. The state estimates it will bring in $30 million. “I’m sure there are firms that see some of these taxes as a true nuisance and they really will move to Indiana,” McGuire said. “But broadly, for the overall economy, I don’t think this is what might be driving people out of Illinois.”

As Texas struggles through a historic freeze that burst water pipes and sent frigid residents under mounds of blankets, its political leaders are in hot water. Even the coronavirus pandemic has become a measure by which executives are judged. A massive public opinion survey conducted by researchers at Northeastern University, Rutgers, Harvard and Northwestern University, including IPR political scientist James Druckman, in November found that voters gave the highest marks to governors who had enacted some of the strictest lockdown measures.

More millennials bought homes in 2020 than any other generation did that year, according to Apartment List's Homeownership report. But at the same time, more millennials also now believe they'll never be able to own a home — 18% said they plan to rent forever, up by 9% percentage points from the previous year. "This pandemic is widening economic inequalities within millennials, with some millennials relatively unscathed economically and others just completely financially devastated by unemployment losses, increased childcare costs, lost economic opportunities, and lingering health problems that they or family members are going to experience," IPR sociologist Christine Percheski told Insider previously.

Tribune Publishing, which publishes the Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers across the country, has agreed to a deal to be bought by hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which is already the company’s largest shareholder. But the deal has the newsroom journalists worried. Medill dean and IPR associate Charles Whitaker said that newsroom journalists have reason to be fearful of an Alden takeover given the hedge fund’s track record. “We know they own hundreds of newspapers across the country. We know that in many of those markets they have gone in and slashed newsrooms staffs. We know that they are largely, as hedge funds are wont to be, in the business of making money and maximizing profit. And that’s not necessarily the business of journalism,” said Whitaker, who expects them to introduce more cost-cutting measures to an already lean newsroom.

Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a laboratory test for measuring neutralizing antibodies against the coronavirus that requires only a single drop of blood, collected and dried on filter paper. "Blood samples can be self-collected at home, and sent to the lab in the mail," said IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade, whose team described the technique in a report posted on Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. Currently, to determine if someone has the neutralizing antibodies that protect against the virus that causes COVID-19, blood must be drawn at a clinic or doctor's office and sent for analysis. The Northwestern test "produces results that are comparable to results from venous blood, and the protocol can be implemented in a short amount of time with widely available laboratory infrastructure," McDade said.

"High rates of child poverty are a national disgrace. Last year there were 10.5 million children living in poverty — more than one in seven kids. For a mom and two children, this means an annual income of less than $20,598. Child poverty leads to real-time suffering and long-term consequences. Alleviating poverty improves a range of kids’ education and health outcomes. These gains last through adulthood, when low-income children who benefited from safety net programs have higher rates of employment and earnings," write Melissa Kearney and IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach.

Parents feel pulled between worries about their kids’ learning losses during the pandemic and their worries about the safety of their kids going back to school, a new national survey of more than 25,000 people by Northwestern, Northeastern, Rutgers and Harvard universities found. “The shift to virtual learning was impressive in many ways, but after nearly a year, it is clear that concerns are growing,” says IPR political scientist James Druckman. "Here though, there is a Catch-22 given substantial concerns about learning loss, but also opposition to returning to in-person."

Over the past two decades, 143 American public schools have experienced shootings during school hours that resulted in at least one fatality. More than 300 people have died in these incidents. This loss of life is a national tragedy. Evidence suggests there are negative health consequences associated with all types of school shootings. According to research by Maya Rossin-Slater, IPR economist Molly Schnell, IPR economist Hannes Schwandt, Sam Trejo and Lindsey Uniat, antidepressant prescriptions for young adults in the vicinity of school shootings tend to rise after they occur.

"Over several months, human rights scholars, activists and genetics experts have been developing a strategy to help reconnect children with their deported parents. The strategy adopts an approach proven to work well for disaster victim identifications used, for example, following a fatal plane crash or during the disastrous California wildfires. The plan involves DNA data comparisons and consent processes outside of government control to protect the identities of the migrant families," writes research assistant professor of pediatrics and IPR associate Sara Katsanis and her co-authors.

Chicago’s oldest hospital is closer to shuttering this spring, even though the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board last month rejected Trinity Health-owned Mercy Hospital and Medical Center’s request for approval to close its doors amid a pandemic that’s disproportionately impacting the Black patients the hospital primarily serves. Mercy on Wednesday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, declaring that “the quality of care at Mercy is an increasing concern as physicians and other colleagues have left Mercy and operating losses have accelerated to $7 million per month.” The action isn’t surprising to IPR political scientist Sally Nuamah, who says it fits a pattern of actions taken by health care facilities after they’ve decided to close. “We know from research that once a hospital or safety net institution is threatened for closure, that often those who are behind that closure begin to disinvest immediately so the bankruptcy is exactly what we’d expect from Trinity,” Nuamah said.

Support is rising among policy makers to address America’s child-poverty crisis, which is getting worse as the pandemic drags on. More than 8 million Americans — including many children — fell into poverty during the second half of last year, exacerbating the racial and income inequalities that are holding back the U.S. economy. As a result, fewer children will suffer from food scarcity and other things that can hold them back, according to IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach.

Much of the American social safety net includes stringent requirements meant to ensure only the truly deserving receive help. But people often forgo available benefits because of the complication and confusion of applying for them, or the perception that they are hard to obtain. “In the old days, we thought that the more complex things were, the better targeted they would be,” said IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, who has studied social welfare systems. “We’ve learned in the last 20 years that the more complex things are, the more likely the worst-off people will drop out.”

There is a fast-growing environmental movement insisting that without restricting the flow of cash to fossil fuel producers, there’s little chance the world community can meet the climate goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Kellogg professor and IPR associate Brayden King, who studies how activists influence corporations, cautions that the groups must coordinate their actions, targeting all the major banks to ensure they maximize their clout. “Otherwise energy clients will take their business elsewhere,” he says. “It will just be money changing hands. The climate problem will remain the same.”

Millennials have long been painted as a generation doomed to be eternally broke and renting forever because they spend all their money on avocado toast. But one segment of the generation is defying those stereotypes. Not only are millennials buying homes, but their their "starter homes" are multimillion-dollar homes rather than the traditional humble first property. Still, while some may be dropping millions on their first homes, but a major generational wealth gap means that others are barely scraping by — particularly during the pandemic, as Hoffower recently reported. "This pandemic is widening economic inequalities within millennials, with some millennials relatively unscathed economically and others just completely financially devastated by unemployment losses, increased childcare costs, lost economic opportunities, and lingering health problems that they or family members are going to experience," IPR sociologist Christine Percheski told Hoffower last month.

The pandemic has made putting food on the table more difficult than ever. Nearly 8 million more Americans relied on food stamps last year than in 2019. In this audio story, IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach discusses negative impacts of COVID-19 on American food security.

Some local faith leaders made a very public hospital visit to get the COVID vaccine in hopes of reducing hesitancy Black and brown communities; 130 faith and community leaders got their shots at Rush University Medical Center's Community Vaccination Day. Rush VP of Community Health, Equity and Engagement said the hospital held the vent because they know there is vaccine hesitancy in Black and brown communities, which have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and they want those communities to know it's OK. "You see a pretty sizeable racial gap," said IPR political scientist Jamie Druckman.

In this WGN-TV Cover Story, Reporter Gaynor Hall and Photojournalist Bradley Piper take a closer look at one of the tools that fueled segregation in Chicago and how the Newberry Library is acknowledging its own history.“I think its really impossible for us to move forward without having a full reckoning of the past,” said Mary Pattillo, the Harold Washington African American Studies and Sociology professor at Northwestern University.

Illinois regulators on Tuesday rejected a plan from the parent company of Chicago’s historic Mercy Hospital to open a new outpatient center. Leaders at Trinity Health, which owns Mercy, are working to close the Bronzeville hospital and its group of clinics on the South Side by May. They say they’ve been losing patients and money for years. Instead, Trinity is proposing an outpatient center that would leave them with a foothold on the South Side – a sign that Mercy would not be completely leaving the communities and patients they serve. IPR political scientist Sally Nuamah noted how people who live in and around Bronzeville have watched hospitals and schools close over the years, and housing disappear. Mercy’s proposed testing center, she said, would reveal disparities that the public knows already exists, without providing solutions. “The question then, is how does the care center improve the health care needs of the community?” Nuamah asked.

The more than 40 million Americans who rely on nutritional programs will soon see another bump in benefits. President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order that will ask the U.S. Department of Agriculture to expand various food benefits programs. First, Biden is asking the USDA to consider allowing states to expand access to enhanced Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The executive order from Biden provides even more focused aid to families on food benefits and especially those with children. “It’s targeted to the families that need it the most,” said IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach. “This will help address the crisis of hunger that we’ve seen during Covid.”

"Today, Jaime Harrison will be elected chair of the Democratic National Committee. Harrison is an institution builder. By choosing him, President Biden suggests he may be willing to become modern history’s first Democratic presidential party-builder — that is, the first Democratic president who prioritizes building up his party as well as enacting policy. In this moment, politics, social changes and the last decade’s technological developments have converged to make it easier for Biden to build the party. And Biden has good reason to do it. Building up the party and growing its majorities might help his thin margins in Congress and could help win pivotal states in the electoral college," writes IPR political scientist Daniel Galvin.

Despite strides in women’s representation in powerful roles, a surprising number of people across the world still don’t trust women to lead effectively. These biases are deep-seated – and may be difficult to change. “The stereotype is that women aren’t agentic” – or decisive and authoritative – “and their voices aren’t as loud and they’re kind of small,” said IPR psychologist Alice Eagly. Because those are the types of traits traditionally associated with men and with leaders, notions of leadership have become bound up with perceptions of masculinity.

Just last month, Biden, in a conference call with supporters of his campaign, said, “I may eat these words, but I predict to you: As Donald Trump’s shadow fades away, you’re going to see an awful lot change” among Republicans. So, is Biden crazy? Is he simply overly optimistic? “The context of the pandemic and the needs of their constituents may lead Republicans to be willing to work with Biden and the Democrats on vaccine and pandemic recovery legislation — even if they oppose the levels of spending proposed by Biden,” said IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong.

"The Republican Party is in crisis. Although more than 70 million Americans voted for President Donald Trump in November, since the election there has been a sharp drop in the number of Americans who call themselves Republicans—and that was before a pro-Trump mob besieged the U.S. Capitol," writes IPR sociologist Monica Prasad for Politico.

When schools shut down in the spring, that raised immediate worries about the nearly 30 million children who depend on school food. Those worries were essentially borne out, with researchers reporting a large rise in child hunger. According to a report from Feeding America, 1 in 4 households with children experienced food insecurity in 2020. "These are just levels that we've never seen before," says IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach.

Demographically, Millennials are now the most educated and the most racially and ethnically diverse adult generation in the U.S. Many have suggested that these characteristics will lead to the most racially tolerant generation in history. Some call this post-racial. Survey research on the racial attitudes and beliefs of Millennials supports this notion, showing Millennials have lower levels of racial prejudice than any generation before them. IPR sociologist Lincoln Quillian, along with the late Devah Pager and other colleagues, recently found that the level of racial discrimination in hiring against Black jobseekers has stayed relatively steady since at least the late 1980s. However, finding early evidence that Millennials engage in racial discrimination is still disappointing.

IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong said the most important reason to impeach President Trump for his actions resulting in violence at the Capitol is because shows there is accountability for his behavior. "It's really important to show our democratic institutions are stronger than the pressure he has put on them to overturn a free and fair election," said Harbridge-Yong. "I worry that without any accountability this could become a political norm that any losing candidate that is unhappy with the election simply tries to prevent the certification of votes."

Employers across the country have fired workers who were arrested for their actions during the events or were shown in social media images as being there. Some businesses are facing calls for boycotts because their owners attended the rally. Still, employers have to be careful and evaluate situations on a case-by-case basis because it could shape the workplace going forward, experts say. “This is a character-forming moment for these companies,” said Brayden King, professor of management at Kellogg and IPR associate. “If they decide to fire someone for just being at the protest it sets a precedent for the future.” “If the company doesn’t do something about it, it appears as though they are tolerating an extreme form of deviant behavior,” King said. “They don’t want to be seen on the wrong side of history.”

IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos found something surprising: The violence largely involved only a small fraction of the city’s gang “factions,” just 6%. Beyond that, Papachristos, a pioneer in the use of social network science to understand gun crimes, found that more than half of the victims came from small networks of people who, because of those ties, are highly likely to get shot. On Father’s Day weekend, for instance, 104 people were shot. Fully one-third of them were in such networks, he found. “Gun violence,” he says, “is tragic, but, in the majority of cases, is decidedly not random.”

Widening wealth inequality has been a feature of American life in the 21st century, but the coronavirus pandemic has amplified a growing gap within the millennial generation. The pandemic has ultimately exacerbated the high income inequality that existed among millennials pre-Covid, said Christine Percheski, IPR social demographer. "This pandemic is widening economic inequalities within millennials, with some millennials relatively unscathed economically and others just completely financially devastated by unemployment losses, increased childcare costs, lost economic opportunities, and lingering health problems that they or family members are going to experience," she said.

Security experts said authorities shouldn't have been taken by surprise. "It was clear, everybody knew that these protesters and quite a lot of them are coming to D.C.," said Olga Kamenchuk, an IPR research expert and security expert. "There were there was definitely quite an aggressive, violent mob which was led into the heart of American institutions, democratic institutions, then into the capital. This is surprising. And this is concerning why this happened."

Dr. Melissa Simon, director of the Center for Health Equity Transformation at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said the state’s move to lower the age for vaccinations to 65 for the next phase makes sense given how many COVID-19 deaths occur in that group. Vaccinating essential workers next should also help Latino and Black communities, she said. “Our community, the Latinx community, and Black community are disproportionately impacted at work by COVID because of the proportion of our populations in those types of jobs that expose them or put them at risk of exposure to COVID,” said Simon, who is also part of Illinois Unidos, a statewide group working to stop the growth of COVID-19 in Latino communities.

"With a dangerous winter ahead, containing the pandemic is crucial. One innovation worth trying in the months before vaccinations are widespread is to pay college students to be careful and remain free of the coronavirus. Many colleges and universities already require undergraduates who live or take classes on campus to get regular Covid-19 tests. They might also offer students cash rewards for testing negative," writes IPR economist Seema Jayachandran.

IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos said historically, “homicide and violence in the US peaks when especially young men and disenfranchised individuals are cynical [of] the government.” “When people don’t think the state is doing what they need to do, they settle disputes by themselves,” Papachristos said. “And you had a perfect storm of that in 2020.” The crippling of the nation by the pandemic was followed by the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing protests, mayhem and diminished faith in police. “When you have these instances of police violence, people withdraw. They stop calling the cops, which means they still have to solve problems and they solve it themselves,” Papachristos said.

Earlier Sunday, local lawmakers made a virtual effort to encourage members of the Black community to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Melissa Simon is the director of the Center for Health Equity Transformation, a joint center between the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University and the Institute for Public Health and Medicine. "Unfortunately we have earned this distrust, and so we in the medical field really have to work, you know, super diligently to, to earn it back," Simon said. Dr. Simon said healthcare workers must not only lead by example but also provide information about the vaccine to their patients.

"Thankfully, the Biden-Harris transition team has already released an initial Covid-19 plan and named its own team in charge of the pandemic response, with Fauci serving as a chief medical adviser. However, these initial efforts are lacking in two significant ways. First, although the plan addresses mask wearing and physical distancing as part of a broad "evidence-based guidance for how communities should navigate the pandemic," it doesn't emphasize the federal government's role in creating its own educational program and directing messages broadly to the American public. Second, the expertise of the 16-member pandemic response team named by President-elect Joe Biden is impressive, but the group consists mainly of medical doctors (nine in total)," writes sociologist and IPR associate Héctor Carrillo.

"When President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Jan. 20, he’ll face very narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress. Many argue that partisan disagreements between Democrats and Republicans limit the prospects for bipartisan dealmaking. But there’s another possible roadblock. As our new research shows, legislators often reject compromise because they believe it puts their reelection at risk," writes IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong and her colleagues.

Economists and policymakers expressed relief as Congress announced a deal Sunday on a $900 billion stimulus package to aid the rapidly deteriorating economy, but the smaller size of the legislation, the omission of several key provisions and the fact that some of the aid expires in March left analysts warning that more spending may be needed next year. “If we know anything about recessions, it’s that the recovery, especially for people with lower levels of education, is going to take longer,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. “It’s going to take us a long time to get out of this, and the aid in this bill doesn’t last for long enough.”

On Oct. 30, a group of 15 eminent scholars published an essay—“Political Sectarianism in America”—arguing that the antagonism between left and right has become so intense that words and phrases like “affective polarization” and “tribalism” were no longer sufficient to capture the level of partisan hostility. Eli Finkel, a professor of psychology and IPR associate and the first author of the paper on political sectarianism I started with, contended in an email that “if we consider Trump’s efforts in isolation, I am not especially concerned,” because the failure of his attempts to overturn the election so far have “provided a crucial and unprecedented stress test of our electoral system.” If, however, “we consider the support for Trump’s efforts from officials and the rank-and-file in the Republican Party, I am profoundly concerned."

While many restaurants, bars and gyms shut down during the pandemic, others have continued operating with limited capacity. New research shows this sacrifice could be effective at curbing transmissions—and density caps may offer one way to keep the economy humming along during the worst of the winter wave. Data from early in the pandemic reveals there’s a “sweet spot” where infections can be reduced while keeping business steady. That magic number: around 20 percent. If indoor capacity in public spaces like restaurants, gyms, hotels and grocery stores was reduced to just 20 percent, we could prevent 87 percent of new infections. Meanwhile, these businesses would lose just 42 percent of their visits, on average, according to research from scientists at Stanford and Northwestern, including IPR sociologist Beth Redbird.

More Americans are going hungry than at any point during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data by the Census Bureau. One in eight Americans reported they sometimes or often did not have enough food in November, according to a recent census survey. Nearly 26 million adults—12% of all adults—reported in that their household had food shortages in the past week, according to Household Pulse Survey data collected in November. Economic conditions are the main causes behind hunger, says Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist and the director of Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research. Food insecurity rates spiked at the end of March, when pandemic lockdowns made the US economy stumble.

Water is necessary for cooking, cleaning, and bathing. It is necessary for livestock to drink, but also to grow the pastures the animals use to graze. Without food and water, the animals die. The tribes whose lives for centuries revolved around their livestock can find themselves, suddenly, with nothing. While lack of water is a problem for everyone, women bear the brunt of the burden. “Most of the public health community is thinking about what’s in the water,” said Sera Young, IPR anthropologist. “It’s easy to forget how dangerous it is to actually just go and acquire the water.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the nation’s child care crisis, one that has kept parents—especially women—out of the U.S. workforce. Reset takes a closer look at the pandemic’s impact on mothers across the country and child care providers around Illinois. IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach explained that women's unemployment has gone up more than men's compared to previous recessions. This financial strain has impacted women's ability to pay for child care and school closures have caused some women to leave the workforce because they have no one to wait their children. "More than one out of four women with kids have reported that they are food insecure," she said.

"A stark measure of the economic hardship created by the coronavirus pandemic on Americans is the large number of families reporting that sometimes or often they do not have enough to eat. This is happening despite a substantial expansion of many existing federal supports and the creation of new programs to provide economic assistance for low-income families. Available real-time data indicate that there is tremendous unmet need and that households with children report the highest rates of not having enough to eat," write IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach.

We got a better picture Monday of what President-elect Joe Biden’s economic team will look like when he takes office in January. As we reported last week, former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is his pick to lead the Treasury. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will also ask the Senate to confirm Wally Adeyemo as deputy treasury secretary. He worked on the National Economic Council and at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under President Barack Obama. Seema Jayachandran, an IPR economist, said it’s notable all three are labor economists. “I see this as really signaling that getting people back to work [and] economic well-being for the poorest Americans and racial minorities is going to be a top priority,” Jayachandran said.

With concerns that Thanksgiving gatherings could produce a surge on top of a surge of COVID-19 cases, Illinois won’t be moving from Tier 3 COVID-19 restrictions for at least the next few weeks, Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday. While cases have dropped, hospitalizations remain highest since the spring surge, Pritzker said. Professor of emergency medicine and IPR associate Lori Post, who closely surveils COVID-19 data, said she is expecting a “God awful” upward spike in cases about a week from now. There’s quite a few risk factors at play as the pandemic is accelerating all across the country.

An Amazon Prime membership already gets you deals on retail goods, snappy deliveries and access to video-streaming content. Now, the e-commerce behemoth says it will also get you free two-day deliveries at the newly-announced Amazon Pharmacy, as well as savings on generic and brand-name medication. So what does that mean for consumers’ health and wealth — especially seeing that Americans pay more than anyone else for their prescription medication, and that medical expenses can be a burden for many? “More competition is generally good for consumers. It’s probably not great for retail pharmacies. It sort of depends on what Amazon does from here,” said Kellogg professor and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite, who studies drug pricing.

Millions of Americans must rely on charity to put Thanksgiving dinner on the table this year, as hunger surges amid a devastating spiraling of the Covid-19 pandemic which the Trump administration has failed to get under control. Overall food insecurity has doubled since last year due to record unemployment and underemployment rates. For families with children, hunger is three times higher than in 2019, according to analysis by IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began last spring, Evanston area chefs answered the call to feed those who were suddenly low on money or food as a result of the economic hardships that came with the quickly-spreading disease. As cases surge again this fall, those same organizations said they are answering more and more calls for help. But this time, the money that previously sustained their efforts is drying up.Competing priorities also could be playing a part, said IPR economist Dean Karlan. Money given to nonprofits is generally marked “for groups of people trying to change the world in some way,” Karlan said. Not only did 2020 bring the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, but many people donated to presidential election campaigns this year, Karlan said. Groups fighting racial injustice also took priority, following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.

"We are relying, I think too much, right now on the charity food system," said Diane Schanzenbach, the director for the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. She found that in the first few months of the pandemic, the number of Americans who didn't have enough to eat surged, from around 8 million to nearly 30 million. "This has revealed some big holes in our safety net," Schanzenbach said, "but they are holes that Congress can fix." Since the pandemic started, as many as seven million people have enrolled in the federal government's food stamp program (now called SNAP). Schanzenbach said Americans need at least a 15% increase in those benefits to survive, but negotiations over the next COVID relief package are stalled in a lame-duck Congress.

Global measles deaths were already at a 23 year high in 2019 after several years of inadequate immunization levels in a number of countries around the world. The coronavirus pandemic looks set to make matters worse. The World Health Organization is worried that disruptions to measles vaccination programs this year in Africa have substantially raised the risk of large outbreaks in many countries. A survey of more than 6,000 households in 24 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America found that about 15% of them have been injured while fetching water for the family. The researchers were shocked by this. Injuries include broken limbs, dislocations, lacerations and burns. IPR anthropologist Sera Young says the causes range from falling over while carrying the water, falling into wells, physical assault, animal attacks and road accidents between the home and communal water sources.

Does Stroger Hospital (or any workplace) have to tell staffers when their co-workers test positive for COVID-19? “The answer is no,“ said law professor and IPR associate Daniel Rodriguez. And when WBEZ contacted officials at Stroger Hospital, they didn’t deny the employee’s accusations about infected staff and a failure to do contact tracing or notify co-workers about positive cases.

Since this summer, the Defund CPD campaign has held mass trainings, canvassing and phone banking to explain police abolition to Chicagoans. Their official demand: to cut the $1. 8 billion police budget by 75% and reinvest that money in community-led programs, from anti-violence work to social services. IPR political scientist Wesley Skogan said that while attrition is a viable strategy to cut police budgets, its long-term impact depends on how long a city is willing to sustain it in the future.“Let's pretend that it's about 500 officers a year and the average cost of a Chicago police officer is about $150,000 a year. So if you would reduce the size of the force by just one year, you're saving [$75 million]. And of course, you can save the next year if you don't do any catch up,” said Skogan.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is alleging Google targeted Get Out the Vote reminders on its homepage to liberal users in late October, saying it “could shift millions of votes,” but technology experts say the claim is not true. Communication professor and IPR associate Erik Nisbet said that claims of Google search manipulation are thinly veiled attempts to tarnish the election’s legitimacy. “Republican Party and Republican leaders in Congress and Trump are trying to throw anything against a wall that might stick that might influence people’s beliefs that somehow the election was rigged, whether it was by Democrats, by tech companies, because of illegal voters and mailing ballots,” Nisbet said. “They’re just throwing anything and everything against the wall, to somehow tarnish people’s perceptions that this was a legitimate, free and fair election.”

The retail colossus opened an online pharmacy Tuesday that allows customers to order medication or prescription refills, and have them delivered to their front door in a couple of days. IPR economist Craig Garthwaite sees several reasons Amazon may become an attractive option for patients looking to fill prescriptions. The retailer is a known entity that many people already use. It may be able to make price shopping for prescriptions more pleasant, and it might be competitive on the pricing of generic drugs, said Garthwaite.

Weeks after the historic presidential election, America seems as polarized as ever. The red and blue political sects looking at each other as enemies, morally suspect and indeed “almost incomprehensible” to one another. But even as polarization has spiked, as IPR psychologist Eli Finkel points out, “The debate going on is increasingly divorced from ideas.” The two sides are interested in “conquest,” not in political ideology, social science, or philosophical questions about the appropriate government role. So while polarization may seem to be about politics, it’s really about increasingly cordoned social, cultural, and demographic groupings. Within this context, with a better understanding of what’s actually dividing the country, culture war histrionics are revealed as a mere distraction, the thin veneer that covers a public policy reality too terrible for most Americans to confront honestly.

In a little over a decade, Gen Z will be taking over the economy. Gen Z currently earns $7 trillion across its 2.5 billion-person cohort, according to a Bank of America Research primer on the generation, called "OK Zoomer." By 2025, that income will grow to $17 trillion, and by 2030, it will reach $33 trillion, representing 27% of the world's income and surpassing that of millennials the following year. Research shows that recession graduates typically see stagnant wages, lasting for up to 15 years. The author behind this research, IPR economist Hannes Schwandt, previously told Business Insider that this the delay in wealth accumulation isn't necessarily due to lack of jobs, but that recession graduates typically start at "lower quality" jobs. A potential upside to this, Schwandt said, is that graduates job-hop to play financial catch-up, which can make them more flexible and help advance their career. "Over time, what you see in these cohorts is a higher degree of mobility from one employer to the next," Schwandt said. "It helps them climb up the quality ladder."

ABC7 I-Team has zeroed in on federal prisons, where controlling the spread of the COVID19 virus has been a serious challenge. Illinois has been hit especially hard, with four federal prisons among the nation's 20 most infected. Feinberg professor and IPR associate Lori Post studies and measures transmission for all kinds of populations. "We're living in a hotspot so I would say that prisons that are next to high population, or of the highest population states, are going to have higher cases of COVID," said Post. She adds that inmates are in a super high-risk position, saying, "They share showers, they share you know meals and they share where they sleep. So, they have no way to social distance and they don't have any way to protect themselves."

House Democrats didn’t fare as well in the 2020 election as they expected, and the blame game has started. The aftermath of congressional elections laid bare an intraparty debate that’s been simmering for a while. “The Democratic Party has historically always lagged behind the Republican Party in terms of building up its organizational capacities,” IPR political scientist Daniel Galvin told Vox. “This is a recurring problem for the Democratic Party, and as everyone’s trying to figure out a way forward, we’re trying to point out the importance of building the base.” That base doesn’t always has to be left wing, Galvin added. But the party must be active and responsive to voters all around the country.

Sen. Kamala Harris made headlines when she pronounced and acknowledged the important role of Black women in both casting their ballots for Joe Biden—thus earning him the title “president-elect”—and also serving as “the backbone of our democracy” during her first speech as vice president-elect. Yes, Black women’s seemingly unwavering support for Democrats favors the political party time and again. But it’s important to acknowledge where much of this support stems from. “Black women aren’t just voting to save the party for the party’s sake,” said Sally Nuamah, Ph.D., a professor of Urban Politics at Northwestern University. “They actually don’t have a lot of other choices. We are in a two-party system and we have a Republican Party that, for example, will put the Voting Rights Act on the table. And we know that Black women, unlike white women, weren’t able to vote until the Voting Rights Act was passed.”

A meta-analysis of more than 18 million COVID patients provides more evidence that people of Black and Asian descent are at greater risk of contracting the virus — and Asians may bear a higher risk of being admitted into the hospital or dying than whites. And people from minority groups who do seek to get tested for COVID-19 have longer wait times to get their results compared with white people. Black and Hispanic respondents waited 4.4 days and 4.1 days on average for their test results, respectively, compared with white respondents’ 3.5 days and Asian Americans’ 3.6 days, according to a survey by researchers at Northeastern University, Harvard University, Rutgers University and Northwestern University, including IPR political scientist Jamie Druckman.

Political polarization runs deep in America. Though the election is over, tensions still run high. While the divide is unmistakable in states with tight races, like Pennsylvania, it is also evident in Illinois—a blue stronghold that sees a stark difference between the vote in Chicago, the suburbs and the rest of the state. “I think it speaks to just how strong partisanship is as a social identity for people,” said IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong, whose research focuses on partisan conflict and the lack of bipartisan agreement in American politics. “Regardless of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, regardless of the consequences for the economy over the last nine months, really the partisanship in terms of people’s vote in the election looked much like we might have thought it would if the election had been held before the pandemic began,” she said.

"As Biden voters celebrated in the streets this past weekend, Democratic politicians began to fight among themselves. Although they won the presidency, Democrats lost seats in the House and failed to flip a single state legislative chamber. What went wrong in down-ballot races? That was the subject when House Democrats held a three-hour post-mortem conference call last week. Agitated moderates argued that Republicans easily aimed debilitating attacks at left-leaning positions on defunding the police, Medicare-for-all and socialism. Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.) warned that the party should tone it down to win the Georgia runoffs and take control of the Senate," wrote IPR political scientist Dan Galvin and co-authors.

Restaurants, gyms, cafes and other crowded indoor venues accounted for some 8 in 10 new infections in the early months of the U.S. coronavirus epidemic, according to a new analysis that could help officials around the world now considering curfews, partial lockdowns and other measures in response to renewed outbreaks. The study, co-authored by IPR sociologist Beth Redbird, used cellphone mobility data from 10 U.S. cities from March to May and provides an explanation for why many low-income neighborhoods were hardest hit. The public venues in those communities were more crowded than in more affluent ones, and residents were more mobile on average, likely because of work demands.

Restaurants, gyms and coffee shops rank high among locations where the coronavirus is most likely to spread outside the home. In Chicago, for instance, 10 percent of sites accounted for 85 percent of predicted infections. The study, co-authored by IPR sociologist Beth Redbird, discerned another pattern: Lower-income people, many of them essential workers, were less able to reduce their mobility during shutdowns and more likely to be exposed to crowded venues. “They have to get to work; they are in occupations that are deemed vital,” Redbird said.

IPR psychologist Eli Finkel talks about America's fractured spirit and how it has played out at a micro and macro level during the election. "It's not that we disagree a whole lot more than we used to disagree, because if we disagreed a whole lot more than we used to disagree, maybe it would be legitimate that we hated each other this much," Finkel said. "But political science has been looking at this stuff for decades, and the fact is that the amount of disagreements that we have today relative to a few decades ago is not that much more extreme, what's much more extreme is the amount that we just hate the people on the other side. The extent to which we would be just horrified if our kid married someone in the other political party."

"If you took a high school health class, you probably know there’s a whole biological process behind this sorcery: Being stressed causes our bodies to release cortisol, the energizing hormone that helped people fight or flee from lions in ye olde caveman days. But because we’re now battling a long-term “invisible enemy”(hi, COVID-19), our bodies are permanently on guard, pumping out lots of that stress juice with nowhere for it to go. Thing is, though, too much cortisol over extended periods of time can weaken our immune systems (perfect timing…), increase inflammation (what up, new old-lady hip), and ramp up our risk for depression, says [psychiatrist and IPR associate] Crystal T. Clark," writes Susie Moore.

The day President Donald Trump turns the White House over to Joe Biden, COVID-19 will remain just as big a threat to Americans. But the strategy for tackling it will change dramatically. Public health experts expect a major reset, including a renewed emphasis on science, better communication and efforts to simultaneously boost the economy and public health rather than pitting the two against each other. The shift is expected to be swift once Biden takes office. IPR associate Lori Post, director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics at the Feinberg School of Medicine, hopes Biden's actions will resemble Roosevelt's, who managed to create an office of malaria control even though World War II was raging. Formed in Atlanta, where malaria was then a major problem, the office later became known as the CDC and established the United States as the preeminent source of public health information in the world.

"Last year, at a rally at East Carolina University, Trump vilified Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born refugee, and three of her colleagues, all women of color, as “hate-filled extremists.” The crowd chanted, “Send her back!” Hawkins, who is white, was indignant, and he said so publicly at the next Transylvania commission meeting, vowing to “oppose this poison every way I can.” One thing led to another, his frustration with Party leaders grew deeper, and, a few months later, Hawkins, Lemel, and a fellow-commissioner, W. David Guice, quit the Republican Party. When they pondered their political future, they hoped that becoming actively nonpartisan might inspire voters to focus on their work—schools, mental health, early-childhood education—and not labels, or the national wedge issues that don’t mean much in local governance. Lemel and Hawkins even ran as a team for re-election, creating a joint Web site and social-media spots. When their defection drew notice, contributors sent nearly forty thousand dollars, with no real effort. The last time Hawkins ran, he spent less than a thousand, and won," wrote IPR journalist Peter Slevin.

Health insurance markets are about to get something they've never had before: competition among some of the most powerful companies in the business. A tentative $2.7 billion settlement of an antitrust case would free Blue Cross plans to invade each other's markets. Under the deal, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association agreed to loosen a rule that barred such competition. If the settlement leads more plans to enter into new markets, premiums in those markets could fall. But it's unclear whether increased competition will affect the ability of insurers to extract large discounts from hospitals and health systems, says Kellogg professor and IPR associate Amanda Starc.

In 2020, politics plays a more central role in people’s lives than it did in the past, according to IPR psychologist Eli Finkel. “For many of us, it has come to define many of the most important aspects of our moral identity,” Finkel said. “Losing an election can mean much more than a temporary loss in the marketplace of political ideas. It can provoke existential concerns about the future of our nation.”

The majority of college students already do not vote, and this year, COVID may dramatically affect those rates because of the lack of an in-person, social atmosphere around voting and concerns about voting safely. Media scholar and IPR associate Stephanie Edgerly said impacts of COVID make getting college students to vote this year “tricky.” She said campuses had previously been a “great space” for voter registration and creating a social atmosphere around voting, which likely won’t exist this year.“The social aspect is an important part when we talk about what motivates people to vote,” Edgerly said. “Certainly, policy positions [help] and having all the information you need to know, but seeing your friends vote and having social pressure and having that sticker is also part of it.”

Last week, about 22 million people collected unemployment benefits of some kind. Food insecurity has more than doubled as a result of the Covid-19-induced economic crisis and affects almost a quarter of all U.S. households, according to researchers at Northwestern University, including IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach. If Congress fails to pass another coronavirus stimulus deal, an estimated 5 million people will exhaust all of their unemployment benefits next month, according to a letter sent by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week.

Political anger is on the rise, studies and interviews indicate, with some members of both major parties viewing the opposition as not just mistaken, but morally wrong and even dangerous. A new study in the journal Science by IPR psychologist Eli Finkel found that hostility toward the opposing party is at its highest point since at least 1980, and our negative feelings toward our political foes are now actually stronger than our positive feelings toward our allies. “The people who pay attention to politics are extremely angry,” said Finkel.

Political polarization between U.S. parties has only escalated since Newt Gingrich’s partisan attacks against President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. But for the first time, contempt for the other political party is greater than affection for own’s own, according to a new study by social psychologist and IPR associate Eli Finkel, IPR political scientists James Druckman and Mary McGrath, and others. “The current state of political sectarianism produces prejudice, discrimination, and cognitive distortion,” Finkel said. Using nationally representative survey data since the 1970s, the researchers measured the difference over time between Americans’ affection for adherents of their own party and dislike of the supporters of the other. Although affection remains steady for one’s own, loathing for the other now exceeds it. “Things have gotten much more severe in the past decade, and there is no sign we’ve hit bottom,” Druckman said.

"When it became clear in the early-morning hours of Nov. 9 that Trump would become the 45th president of the United States, the sickening feeling that most of us had in the pits of our stomach wasn’t just that this awful man was our nation’s leader. It was the knowledge that so many of our fellow Americans had chosen to vote for him. Suddenly, we didn’t recognize our own country. That’s the part nobody has ever really wanted to face: that our fight is with each other as much as it is with Trump. Because honestly, we don’t want to have that discussion ... A pair of Northwestern University professors just helped co-author a scholarly article referring to our current state of affairs as “political sectarianism,” employing a word usually used in connection with religion because of the religious fervor that has overtaken our polarized politics and undermined our ability to find common ground," writes columnist Mark Brown.

IPR journalist Charles Whitaker says Ebony magazine is largely why he became a journalist. When as a young student he had to do a report based on a periodical, he chose Ebony because it “was on every Black coffee table growing up" in the 1960s. “My report was based on a story by Charles Sanders who once upon a time was the Paris bureau chief of Ebony,” Whitaker said. “It was all about Black expatriates living in Paris, and I thought, 'How cool is that?’ You could actually write and go to cool places and interview interesting people. That’s what I wanted to do — that was my inspiration for being a journalist."

Rising coronavirus cases and hospitalizations nationwide are prompting some state and local governments to reimpose restrictions similar to those from the spring, when grocery store shelves were empty as consumers stocked up on toilet paper, frozen food and canned goods. “There’s a broad swath of the American public that’s really aware of what’s going on with infection rates. What we see then is that worry and concern amongst the public follows hospitalization most closely,” said IPR sociologist Beth Redbird. “We were most worried in about mid-April, that’s when we hit our peak of worry. We declined slightly through the summer and then we rebounded a little bit in the second wave period,” added Redbird, who leads the COVID-19 Social Change Survey, which has been polling the same group of 8,000 people online since March to monitor behaviors throughout the pandemic.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic and numerous voter-suppression efforts, some seventy million ballots have already been cast this fall. As Election Day nears, Dorothy Wickenden is joined by New Yorker writers to talk about three states where the vote is particularly contentious, including IPR journalist Peter Slevin, who discusses Wisconsin, where the Democrats have learned from Hillary Clinton’s mistakes.

The school buildings in Evanston, Illinois, are still empty. But the district’s recently hired superintendent caused a stir during a public Zoom meeting announcing how the they will decide which students get priority seating when in-person learning resumes. Low-income students, special needs and those dealing with homelessness are just some who will be first in line. There have been angry letters, petitions and even death threats to the superintendent and school board. For the last four years, the Evanston school district has been working on implementing anti-racism resolutions and curricula to address inequity. “Taking an anti-racist stance requires some sort of sacrifice,” says IPR developmental psychologist Onnie Rogers. “I think that's really the part of racial equity that our country is still getting used to on the ground.”

Even before the coronavirus pandemic began, many experts warned that U.S. public schools were struggling and that inequality, was widening. One reason: unequal funding. In the United States, K-12 public schools are primarily funded by state and local dollars, which are largely based on state tax revenue and local property taxes — two sources that are greatly tied to the wealth of local residences, and by correlation, race. IPR education and social policy scholar Kirabo Jackson and co-authors analyzed decades of student outcomes and published a paper in the National Bureau of Economic Research which found that “a 10% increase in per-pupil spending each year for all twelve years of public school leads to 0.27 more completed years of education, 7.25% higher wages, and a 3.67 percentage-point reduction in the annual incidence of adult poverty.”

Americans now hate people in the opposite political party more than they love their own party, with disrupting implications about behavior, a new study finds. "Compared to a few decades ago, Americans today are much more opposed to dating or marrying an opposing partisan; they are also wary of living near or working for one," according to the study by psychologist and IPR associate Eli Finkel, IPR political scientist Jaime Druckman and others.

"We’re in the thick of the ‘shecession’. The global economy is now in its worst downturn since the Great Depression. One of the unique aspects of the current recession is the way it’s impacting women: though men are more likely to die of Covid-19, the pandemic’s toll on employment is heavier for women. Unlike other modern recessions, the pandemic recession has led to more job losses among women than among men. While the 1970s marked the start of ‘mancession’ periods in industries like construction, the current ‘shecession’ is heavily affecting sectors like hospitality and retail," writes Christine Ro, citing research by IPR economists Matthias Doepke.

Some men say the pandemic has finally given them permission to dial back their career ambitions in a way they hadn’t allowed themselves to before. Others chose to stay home to prioritize a partner’s essential job, embraced full-time parenting after a job loss or worried about exposure to the virus. Economists, like IPR economist Matthias Doepke, believe decisions made now by fathers could have long-term implications—and not just for men. Changes to the way couples split work and child care tend to stick and snowball, they note. If more men step up at home, more women might be able to dig deeper into their careers, reducing inequality at work.

"Black girls have a higher chance of being arrested than the police who murdered Breonna Taylor in her sleep. In middle and high school, Black girls represent 16% of the population, yet they represent 44% of those arrested. Just this past May, “Grace”, a 15-year-old Black girl in Michigan, made headlines for being arrested and detained for failing to complete her online schoolwork. This would be a surprise except Black girls are the fastest-growing juvenile justice population in America," writes IPR political scientist Sally Nuamah.

In a typical year, the government helps feed almost 30 million pupils a day, or about 1 in 2. Now, because of Covid-19, most districts are delivering half as many meals as before, or not even half, according to the School Nutrition Association, which represents school lunch program administrators. Many parents aren’t able to pick up food because of work logistics or having to watch kids during remote learning, and some schools provide meals only on certain days of the week. These missed meals are contributing to an alarming increase in child hunger as food banks around the country report soaring demand. As of late June, 1 in 6 U.S. households was experiencing what researchers call food insecurity, surpassing the rate at the peak of the Great Recession, according to the Brookings Institution. “When we first saw these numbers, I thought, ‘My God, they can’t be true,’ ” says IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach. “You think, ‘What is going on, America?’ This is a problem we can solve.”

More than half a year has zoomed, with more than half of the offices in downtown Chicago sitting empty, but as working remote slowly phases out, quickly bubbling up are concerns about return-to-work policies. Is a company really allowed to ask about your health before you step back inside? “The employer has every right, and indeed I would go so far as to say an ethical duty, to ask the kinds of questions and to probe,” said law professor and IPR associate Dan Rodriguez.

We know certain groups are at greater risk for COVID-19 including Latinx and African Americans. Now researchers say sexual and gender minorities may also have a higher likelihood for contracting SARS-CoV-2 and potentially experiencing worse outcomes. IPR psychologist Brian Mustanski has been working with the LGBTQ community for his entire career. Now, he’s leading a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. “We’re now honing in on young gay and bisexual men and transgender women as a particular population to look at rates of infection with COVID,” he said. It is one of the first studies to investigate COVID-19 exposure among young gay and bisexual men and transgender women. “Due to some of the stressors of discrimination and stigma that gay and bisexual men have higher rates of inflammation in their body,” Mustanski said. “The body can also produce a large inflammatory response in response to COVID and therefore, if your baseline level of inflammation is already high, you may be at higher risk for developing that health outcome.”

In the past few decades, Americans have broadened their image of what constitutes a legitimate romantic relationship, but what hasn’t shifted much is the expectation that a monogamous romantic relationship is the planet around which all other relationships should orbit. IPR psychologist Eli Finkel identifies three distinct eras in American marriages. The first, running from the colonial period until about 1850, had a pragmatic focus on fulfilling spouses’ economic and survival needs; the second, lasting until about 1965, emphasized love. Finkel makes the case that starting around 1965, the “self-expressive marriage” became the ideal; spouses expected their partnership to be the site of self-discovery and personal growth.

The novel coronavirus and the upcoming election are threatening our nation’s mental health, a leading group of psychologists warned in a new report, adding that up to 8 in 10 adults say the pandemic is a “significant source” of stress in their lives. The report also found that Gen Z is the most likely group to report experiencing common symptoms of depression, with 7 in 10 noting that in the two weeks prior to the survey they felt so tired that they sat around and did nothing, felt very restless, found it hard to think properly or concentrate, or felt lonely, miserable or unhappy. “Loneliness and uncertainty about the future are major stressors for adolescents and young adults, who are striving to find their places in the world, both socially and in terms of education and work,” said IPR's Emma Adam. “We must work to provide social, emotional and mental health support to this generation while providing much-needed financial assistance and education and work opportunities for youth. Both comfort now and hope for the future are essential for the long-term well-being of this generation.”

The common view of American politics today is of a clamorous divide between Democrats and Republicans, an unyielding, inevitable clash of harsh partisan polarization. But that focus obscures another, enormous gulf — the gap between those who follow politics closely and those who don’t. Call it the “attention divide.” This effect is made clear in a study conducted by several political scientists including IPR's James Druckman. Researchers asked a group of over 3,000 Americans to describe either themselves or members of the other party. Only 27 percent of these people said that they discuss politics frequently; a majority consider themselves moderates. But nearly 70 percent of these people believe that a typical member of the other party talks about politics incessantly and is definitely not moderate. For partisans, politics is a morality play, a struggle of good versus evil. But most Americans just see two angry groups of people bickering over issues that may not always seem pressing or important.

Coronavirus testing turnaround time has improved since the early months of the pandemic, according to a new report, but it still isn’t fast enough — and racial disparities in testing persist. The average wait time for receiving COVID-19 test results dropped from 4.0 days in April to 2.7 days in September, according to the analysis of IPR political scientist Jamie Druckman and co-authors. “This suggests that contact tracing is not as ideal as it could be, and the lack of tracing is surely contributing to the spread,” Druckman said. "The hope is these barriers to testing decline and wait times go down — crucial steps especially as we head into winter.”

On May 30, the day after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker lifted statewide COVID-19 restrictions that required residents to stay home, thousands of people protested downtown in what began peacefully but turned into violent clashes between protesters and Chicago police officers. IPR political scientist Wesley Skogan, who has studied policing in Chicago, said CPD and its superintendents have “pingponged” between a crime strategy with a focus on district beat policing and one emphasizing a more sweeping, citywide response to flare-ups. “This is an old story and it really reflects the two conflicting, two truly conflicting models of what’s the best thing to do,” Skogan said.

In early April, soon after the US economy began its pandemic-induced nosedive, IPR economist Matthias Doepke and co-authors published a paper that noted some unusual patterns emerging. “Regular” recessions – that is, routine economic contractions not spurred by a once-in-a-century pandemic – typically hurt men’s employment more than women’s, the authors wrote, as male-dominated industries like construction and manufacturing are often the first to slow down. The Covid-19 recession, on the other hand, seemed practically designed to torpedo women’s employment. Stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines took a heavy toll on service and hospitality jobs, where women make up a large share of employees. They also shut down the support systems – schools and day-cares — that enable many women with young children to work. Grandparents, friends and neighbors who might otherwise have helped were off-limits for fear of contagion.

In early April, soon after the US economy began its pandemic-induced nosedive, IPR economist Matthias Doepke and co-authors published a paper that noted some unusual patterns emerging. “Regular” recessions – that is, routine economic contractions not spurred by a once-in-a-century pandemic – typically hurt men’s employment more than women’s, the authors wrote, as male-dominated industries like construction and manufacturing are often the first to slow down. The Covid-19 recession, on the other hand, seemed practically designed to torpedo women’s employment. Stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines took a heavy toll on service and hospitality jobs, where women make up a large share of employees. They also shut down the support systems – schools and day-cares — that enable many women with young children to work. Grandparents, friends and neighbors who might otherwise have helped were off-limits for fear of contagion.

Measuring a charity’s impact is time intensive and requires answering lots of difficult questions — which of these studies on the effects of education programs on test scores later in life do we believe? If the charity has limited data, how far can we generalize from the data it does have? If it collects no data on many of its programs, what should be our base assumption about their impact? “The best site out there [for evaluating impact] is GiveWell, but they’re only naming the top 10” best charities," said economist and IPR associate Dean Karlan. “So for someone who wants to support someone in their local community or education internationally, we saw this big gaping hole.” Karlan cofounded ImpactMatters as an attempt to change that. Their impact evaluation process doesn’t involve as much heavy-lifting as GiveWell’s.

A hotly contested rematch in a central and southwestern Illinois district that has drawn national attention as a top target for Democrats is one of the most closely watched of several Downstate congressional races on the Nov. 3 ballot. Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan is making her second bid to flip U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis’s Downstate congressional seat, two years after the four-term Republican incumbent narrowly survived her first challenge by just over 2,000 votes. Londrigan’s campaign and its focus on health could benefit from Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden’s attention to the same issue, said IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong. “They’re advocating that only a Biden administration can push forward legislation to continue to protect preexisting conditions, to the extent that narrative is more compelling to voters, that could certainly help Betsy Dirksen Londrigan," Harbridge-Yong said.

Think back to the early days of the pandemic in the U.S. Reports of rising infection rates felt pretty overwhelming to read. It was hard to draw any meaning from it all. But it was perspectives from scientists and public health officials that helped give it all context. How worried to be, how to be safe and feel as safe as possible. "Problems are complicated. Policy is complicated. It helps to have somebody super knowledgeable give their analysis on what is happening," said IPR journalist Stephanie Edgerly.

Today’s technology — various forms of which have been around since the invention of what people of a certain age would refer to as a VCR — means we can opt to see one live and quickly watch a recorded version of the other almost immediately. That also means voters will still get a chance to see it either on their own or in news reports. But the competing nature of the events has triggered questions about NBC’s decision to schedule and air a live town hall event with Trump at the same time as ABC’s already announced town hall with Biden. “You have a situation where the presidential debate commission made the rules, and Donald Trump decided he didn’t want to play by them. And Joe Biden, who was willing to play by the rules, went ahead and scheduled a town hall. And now for NBC to set up a town hall session at exactly the same time seems unfair to say the least — and it owes everyone an explanation about why the decided to do this,” said IPR journalist Peter Slevin.

After an initial infection, patients who had the first SARS virus in the early 2000s showed immunity 17 years later. In those infected with MERS in 2012, studies show similar long-term protection. But will SARS-CoV-2 follow the same pattern? For most people this is going to be many months, probably several years. IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade and his team are conducting study to answer this question, distributing their in-house developed test in Chicago areas known to have high rates of COVID-19. The results showed even more people had COVID antibodies than doctors or patients knew. “In our early analysis preliminary results suggest that about 20 percent of people in our study test positive for exposure for the virus, which is interesting. It’s higher than we would have anticipated,” McDade said.

A June report by IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach of Northwestern University found that food insecurity had doubled overall and tripled among families with children due to the pandemic, relying on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey. In an interview with CBS News, she said that she was "confident" that this pattern of rising food insecurity would "continue to hold." Schanzenbach's research has found that Black and Hispanic families are seeing particularly dramatic rises in food insecurity. "I do feel very comfortable saying it's really elevated," Schanzenbach said.

Increased screen time and cancelled sports due to the pandemic could be having an unintended consequence on kids. “We're concerned that being out of school and just not being as active as they normally are, are going to contribute to increased obesity,” said IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach. The coronavirus pandemic could be compounding a problem that was already a big concern.“One third of kindergartners in the city of Chicago were obese. About half of sixth graders were obese, and you know, if we see a 10 or 20% increase of that because of COVID-19, you know, that will wipe out basically a decade's worth of progress on this,” Schanzenbach said. Health experts said they have been working to fight childhood obesity for years. While the rate has fluctuated year to year in Illinois, it has dropped overall. That metric is expected to change after the coronavirus pandemic has to led to profound food insecurity.

Pediatricians and public health experts predict a potentially dramatic increase in childhood obesity this year as months of pandemic eating, closed schools, stalled sports and public space restrictions extend indefinitely. About one in seven children have met the criteria for childhood obesity since 2016, when the federal National Survey of Children's Health changed its methodology, a report out Wednesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found. Though the percentage of children considered obese declined slightly in the past 10 years, it is expected to jump in 2020. "We were making slow and steady progress until this," said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, a Northwestern University economist and professor. "It's likely we will have wiped out a lot of the progress that we've made over the last decade in childhood obesity."

For years, economists have debated whether the United States does enough to help its unemployed. The pandemic recession — the worst downturn the world has seen in nearly a century — has given a new sense of urgency to the discourse. “In the long run, we see from previous recessions, unemployment has a very persistent impact on people’s earnings prospects,” said IPR economist Matthias Doepke. “Even after they find a job, it’s not the same level of pay you have before. There’s a real risk that the long-term repercussions of the crisis will be more severe.” New research from Doepke and his associates indicates there may be other long-term benefits to the German model that are only now becoming clear. The pay gap has soared between college-educated workers and less-educated workers in the United States since 1980, but it has remained flat in countries like Germany.

Word that a COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial was paused may be in headlines but for scientists, it's expected news. OB/GYN and IPR associate Melissa Simon analyzes vaccine research, and said she hopes more information about this process will allow the public to feel confident to take a vaccine once it's approved. "The more transparent these trials are when they pause, the better," said Simon. "Right now, we've earned the distrust of many communities across the country right now and we have to work even harder to get that trust back, and especially with respect to COVID and a vaccine for COVID."

President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee could threaten the future of the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a challenge to the health care law one week after Election Day. During the confirmation hearing Monday, Senator Dick Durbin referenced a suburban family that was protected by the act. "Judge Barrett to the best of my knowledge has never decided a case nor in her role as a law professor written about the issue of severability as it applies to any statute including the ACA," said law professor and IPR associate Daniel Rodriguez.

"The recent tidal wave of news about President Donald Trump and Melania’s COVID diagnoses, his taxes, the spread of infection delaying action on Amy Coney Barrett as Supreme Court Justice, wildfires in California, the vice presidential debate, protests across the country on racial injustice, and the rising COVID death toll all seems unavoidable," writes journalist and IPR associate Stephanie Edgerly. "And yet, there are many in this country who are unaware of any of these events. How is it possible to avoid news when the news is more abundant and accessible than ever before?"

The VP debate on October 7th was filled with accusations, untruths, and interruptions. But Harris and Pence had nothing on their running mates, former VP Joe Biden and President Donald Trump, who a week earlier in their own debate took all of those ills, turned them up to 11, and threw in vicious personal attacks. The debate was an embarrassment, and afterwards, one of the most common reactions was that viewers found it upsetting—in a visceral, emotional way.“I think it was so upsetting because it violated political social norms,” wrote IPR political scientist James Druckman in an email to WIRED. “While those norms have been evolving, there is still presumably an expectation to follow the dictates of the debate structure. That that did not happen generates anxiety in people (violation of norms stimulates anxiety), and hence they are upset and worried, probably on both sides of the aisle.”

While COVID testing has become more widespread than a few months ago, it still not enough to paint an accurate picture on how many people have been exposed to the virus. Preliminary results of a Northwestern University blood test study conclude 20% of Chicagoans carry the antibodies to the coronavirus. "There are different rates of COVID infection diagnoses, but the rate of the infection based on antibody tests didn't differ a lot," said IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade.

Nearly 1 in 5 Chicago residents who sent in blood-spot samples for IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade's study tested positive for antibodies to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, according to preliminary results of an ongoing study. In the ongoing study, participants mail in a drop of dried blood to the researchers, who then test it for the COVID-19 antibodies. It’s an inexpensive option that doesn’t require visiting a medical facility.

Six months after schools around the country shut their doors amid coronavirus lockdowns, fall enrollment declines in districts across 20 states come as schools scramble to improve remote learning offerings and to adopt sufficient safety procedures. In many places, the enrollment drops are especially noticeable in kindergarten and pre-K. IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach says starting kindergarten late has no long-lasting educational advantages and may even have some drawbacks, for example in lifetime earnings.

As a small but growing number of studies over the last decade and a half have shown, paternal postpartum depression is a real problem, and it is occurring in significant numbers—regardless of your sexuality, or whether your children are biological or adopted. Some researchers have estimated that it may affect as many as a quarter of all new fathers, although a growing consensus hovers at around one in ten. In January, three leading researchers, Tova Walsh, Ph.D., Neal Davis, M.D., and pediatrician and IPR associate Craig Garfield, published a piece in Pediatrics—the influential journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics—urging pediatricians to screen for paternal PPD, just as they do for maternal postpartum depression. “It is now critical to recognize paternal depression as a community of pediatric providers and ensure consistent screening, referral, and follow-up,” they wrote.

Hunger is still a problem in some places across the United States, a problem made worse by the latest unemployment claims showing a slow economic recovery from the pandemic. Texas Public Radio's Paul Flahive reports that even months after the pandemic began, food banks are still struggling to meet the demand. As the coronavirus pandemic drags on, more Americans are finding themselves in need of financial assistance. Food banks are feeling the pinch. And many of them say they can't keep up with demand. "We've never experienced food insecurity at this level since we've been tracking the data for the last 20 years," said IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach.

"A Summit on Human Trafficking hosted at the White House earlier this year, before COVID-19 was a concern, demonstrated what critics called a push that was “undermining” efforts and using the opportunity as a “photo op.” Notably absent from this meeting were several prominent leaders in the anti-trafficking space. Indeed, trends do suggest an overwhelming aspect of human trafficking that have been worsened by Trump administration policies, particularly for those vulnerable to trafficking due to their immigration status. It is clear that the administration’s dedication to ending human trafficking is lacking in important ways," writes IPR political scientist Tabitha Bonilla.

Journalist and IPR associate Peter Slevin, reporting from Wisconsin, tells David Remnick that Democrats there organized early, to avoid the mistake that Hillary Clinton made in 2016 of taking the state for granted. Even so, Biden’s campaign has declined to do risky in-person events, but the Trump campaign, until recently, has proceeded as if the coronavirus had never happened.

As Trump recovers, there are two more presidential debates on the horizon, currently scheduled for Oct. 15 and 22. Meanwhile, the vice presidential debate is set for Wednesday. While there isn’t much evidence that debates substantially move voters who have already made up their minds, they do present an opportunity to provide information to those who are undecided, said IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong. Though there are fewer undecided voters this year than in 2016. “For the vice presidential debate, I think both because of the lack of policy substance in the previous presidential debate, as well as the ages of the presidential candidates, the vice presidential debate may take on more significance,” Harbridge-Yong said.

There’s currently no vaccine for hepatitis C, but medications — known as “direct-acting antivirals” — can now cure the disease. One such cure, branded as Sovaldi in the US by the drugmaker Gilead, ignited a controversy over pharmaceutical price gouging when it debuted in 2013 with an $84,000 price tag for a 12-week course of treatment. Since then, additional hepatitis C drugs, including lower-priced generics, have entered the market. The competition “has been very effective putting the price down close to $20,000,” said economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite. “That is still high, but well within cost-effective price range.” Indeed, a 2020 study on hepatitis C drug pricing said “cost remains a key barrier to access for many patients and for scale-up in many national health programs.”

The September jobs numbers, released by the Labor Department on Friday, confirmed what economists and experts had feared: The recession unleashed by the pandemic is sidelining hundreds of thousands of women and wiping out the hard-fought gains they made in the workplace over the past few years. Dropping out of the work force completely has long-term consequences not just for the woman trying to re-enter the work force down the line but also for women’s overall position in the work force, said economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke, who is the co-author of a report published in August about the gendered impacts of this economic recession. “First of all, it takes some time to find a new job,” Doepke said, “but what’s actually more important is that it’s even more difficult to find a job that is comparable and to get back to the same career position.”

Critical race theory arose to explain why structural racism endures. Given the racial conflicts roiling American politics, scholarly analysis of the causes and consequences of racial inequality may be more important now than at its inception.

After President Trump contracted COVID-19, many have questioned what the constitutional transfer of power would look like if the president could not perform his duties. The most concerning aspect of President Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis, according to legal scholar and IPR associate Daniel Rodriguez, is the uncertainty about how severe his health is because of the White House’s lack of transparency. "This is a serious, serious issue," said Rodriguez.

Plenty of people want to know whether they ever had COVID-19, and public officials need to know. But existing antibody tests that look for markers of the disease caused by the coronavirus have not met the challenge, with accuracy, cost and convenience problems. Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere, however, are working on the next generation of these tests that can be done at home. Work started on the Northwestern coronavirus test in April in the lab of Thomas McDade, an anthropology professor and a faculty fellow in the university’s Institute for Policy Research. He said they have proved easy to use and reliable.

Women helped pull the U.S. economy out of the last recession. This time around they are falling behind. The pandemic is disproportionately affecting women and threatening to wipe out decades of their economic progress. As the crisis drags on, some of the biggest pain points are among women of color and those with young children. The female recession could slow the recovery, according to some economists and policy analysts. The wage gap will likely be more than 2 percentage points wider after a pandemic recession, instead of shrinking like it would during a normal downturn, according to economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke, who co-authored a recent study on the topic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made millennials without children even less inclined to start families, according to a new poll. A poll released Monday from Morning Consult found that 15 percent of millennials, defined as those born between 1981 and 1996, are "less interested" in having children for the first time due to the pandemic. "The very unromantic part of fertility is that it's really largely driven by economics," said IPR economist Hannes Schwandt, who researches the relationship between economics and fertility. "For women who face recessions in their early 20s, we see persistent effects that mostly grow over time. With millennials, this pandemic is definitely not good news."

With COVID-19 continuing to spread, and millions of Americans still out of work, one of the nation's most urgent problems has only grown worse: hunger. In communities across the country, the lines at food pantries are stretching longer and longer, and there's no clear end in sight. Before the pandemic, the number of families experiencing food insecurity — defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life — had been steadily falling. But now, as economic instability and a health crisis takes over, new estimates point to some of the worst rates of food insecurity in the United States in years. The coronavirus pandemic has only worsened the problem. According to one estimate by IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach, food insecurity more than doubled as a result of the economic crisis brought on by the outbreak, hitting as many as 23% of households earlier this year.

In his latest bid to show that he's lowering drug prices, President Donald Trump said Thursday–less than six weeks before the election–that he will send $200 drug discount cards to 33 million Americans on Medicare. However, a single infusion for seniors will not help lower drug prices, said Craig Garthwaite, director of the Program on Healthcare at the Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and IPR associate. "I was just a bit baffled what from a policy standpoint this could be other than currying favor with particular groups," said Garthwaite, noting that discount cards that drug companies send consumers are viewed as pushing up prices.

Journalism groups have spoken out and slammed President Donald Trump’s latest controversial comments about the US media after he appeared to endorse police violence against reporters as a “beautiful site” at a rally this week. Charles Whitaker, dean of the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications, described the president’s comments as “unconscionable” in a statement the college released on Thursday.

A front-runner to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a federal appellate judge who has established herself as a reliable conservative on hot-button legal issues from abortion to gun control. Amy Coney Barrett, a devout Catholic, is hailed by religious conservatives and others on the right as an ideological heir to conservative icon Antonin Scalia, the late Supreme Court justice for whom she clerked. “She is, to use the phrase du jour, an originalist. So much like the late Justice (Antonin) Scalia and even those justices on the court now, like Justice Kavanaugh, (Neil) Gorsuch, (Samuel) Alito and (Clarence) Thomas – the so-called conservatives on the court, she believes in methods of interpretation that accord significance to the original meaning of the Constitution,” law professor and IPR associate Daniel Rodriguez said of Barrett.

In normal times, DePriest serves as an oasis for about five hundred students from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade, the vast majority of whom come from low-income households in Austin, a neighborhood hit hard by covid-19 and the economic downturn. Now, Geverola and her forty-five teachers are laboring to construct a virtual world that not only instructs students but supports and embraces them during the most difficult year that many of them have ever faced. “Have I lost a lot of sleep? Yes,” she told me during one of my visits to DePriest, which was named for the first Black congressman elected in the twentieth century. “I journal every day. And I go to therapy. Virtually, of course. There are seven hundred people who depend on me. That can be scary," journalist and IPR associate Peter Slevin reports.

Congress remains at a standstill over passing another coronavirus rescue package, but tens of millions of people still can't afford enough food for themselves and their families six months after the pandemic began upending Americans' lives. Hunger has soared during the outbreak, and advocates are calling on lawmakers to extend two key child nutrition relief measures in their spending bill before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. They are also pushing Congress to boost food stamp benefits, which will also help stimulate the economy. Nearly 11% of adults said in July that their households sometimes or often didn't have enough to eat, up from 3.7% in 2019, according to Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. The share of adults in household with children in this situation was more than 14% in July, also far higher than last year.

The pandemic-induced economic downturn pushed millions of Americans into precarious financial situations. Widespread job and wage losses were both a wake-up call and a conversation-starter for millions of Americans, and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic many young couples are giving their finances more attention. There’s another wrinkle to young couples embarking on a life together: Women in the U.S. have endured steep job losses due to their high representation in “high-contact” service sectors such as restaurants, travel and hospitality, which social-distancing guidelines have capsized, according to a working paper distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research and authored by researchers from the University of California San Diego, Northwestern University, including economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke and the University of Mannheim.

Evanston police and Northwestern University researchers are recommending changes to the Evanston Police Department’s current use of force policy, according to a presentation at Monday’s Evanston City Council meeting. The pro-bono review from The Northwestern Neighborhood Network Initiative included recommendations focusing on sanctity of life, proportionality, and accountability and oversight, according to the memo. Those included a requirement that officers “use force as a last resort,” create a “clear statement on policy for noncompliance,” provide guidance on the “principle of proportionality,” commit to de-escalation, prohibit the use of force on restrained persons, provide additional protections for vulnerable populations, reinforce the need to provide medical care and improve data collection and public access to that data, according to the memo.

Teen workers seem to be faring better, relative to other age groups, than they have in past recessions, said IPR economist Hannes Schwandt, noting their comparatively low unemployment rate and the fact that their wages appear to be maintaining their pre-pandemic upward trend. Mr. Schwandt’s research with Till von Wachter, of the University of California, Los Angeles, found that entering the labor market during a recession can weigh on a graduate’s earnings for more than 10 years. Their research, which looked at labor markets between 1976 and 2016, found high school graduates faced larger income losses than college going peers, possibly because of a less-structured transition into the labor market.

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s handling of the pandemic, criticized by some Republicans and rural lawmakers and challenged by lawsuits, had the approval of 57% of Illinois voters at the end of August, according to a survey conducted by a consortium of universities that was released Monday. The COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States survey also showed Illinois voter approval of President Donald Trump’s handling the pandemic at 29.4%, a drop from nearly 40% in April, with 57% not approving. The consortium is made up of researchers from Northwestern, Harvard, Rutgers and Northeastern universities, including IPR political scientist James Druckman. The latest survey involved 21,196 people surveyed across the nation online with results weighted to reflect age, gender and racial demographics.

The Pleasure family is far from alone in the struggle to afford food, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem for a number of reasons. “Families make ends meet by being employed. And when there's a big shock to employment, it's not entirely surprising that food insecurity rates go up,” says Diane Schanzenbach, Director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. In August, the unemployment rate among white workers stood at about 7%. For Black workers, it was 13%. And as unemployment shot up, so did prices at the grocery store, with the highest single-month increase seen in the last 50 years. Meanwhile, millions of students lost access to school meals once the pandemic set in. “When that went away, that left holes in families' budgets that were really quite deep,” Schanzenbach says.

A new survey out from the U.S. Census has experts scratching their heads. The first new Household Pulse Survey in more than a month was expected to show some growth in the number of people experiencing hunger or food insecurity. The last time one was released, federal pandemic unemployment assistance — $600 per week — was still reaching affected households. It ended in August, and experts expected the numbers to shoot up. But the numbers paradoxically went down. In Texas, the number of people who sometimes or often didn’t have enough food to eat dropped from 3.6 million at the end of July to just over 2.1 million in the latest survey conducted near the end of August. The weekly survey was on hiatus in between. “I am not comfortable comparing week 12 to week 13,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an IPR economist. “I would encourage you to do the same [and] not take this report at face value.”

Wesley Skogan, a Northwestern University criminologist, said that if Chicago is really ready for police reform, those in charge need to take whistleblowers like Spalding and Davis seriously. “We should pay special attention to the reports of the people who have actual experience in the organization. We should pay extra attention to that kind of expertise. It’s experience and expertise,” Skogan said.

An I-Team data investigation of racial disparities in Chicago Police Department traffic stops shows Black drivers are far more likely to be stopped by Chicago Police than white drivers. "All the increase in the surge has been among innocent people," said Wesley Skogan, IPR faculty emeritus expert on crime. "These are the kinds of things that are piling up and it makes people know that they're being disrespected. People know that their time isn't worth anything, people know that the police completely suspect them of everything, even if they end up doing nothing. So the weight of this kind of policing is just enormous on poor Black neighborhoods in Chicago."

Criminologists are dismissing claims by President Donald Trump’s chief law-enforcement officer that beefing up the federal role in the fight against Chicago gun violence is having a big impact and that the city has turned a corner after a shooting surge that reached historic intensity this summer. IPR political scientist Wesley Skogan, another expert on crime and policing, said there’s no telling whether the agents, detailed to the city as part of an effort dubbed Operation Legend, had a big effect. “It’s impossible in a short period of time in a summer with many, many things happening at the same time to parse out the effects of the federal intervention versus the local intervention versus the nonprofit street-worker intervention," he said.

A new Northwestern University study analyzing the news worthiness of tweets has found that the “breaking” label commonly employed by Twitter accounts could be fueling the fires of misinformation and fake news. Why? The answer may lie in the fundamental way people define news and how that influences their response. There appears to be a disconnect between the way audiences are interpreting the “breaking” label and what media organizations and journalists intend when they use it, said media scholar and IPR associate Stephanie Edgerly.

Immigrants in the US act more as “job creators” than as “job takers.” Immigrants are 80% more likely to be entrepreneurs than natives in the US, according to a July 2020 study co-authored by Benjamin Jones, strategy professor at Kellogg School of Business and IPR associate. “This is not just small businesses like restaurants and laundromats, but also high-growth ventures like Tesla and Google that go on to create thousands of jobs,” Daniel Kim, study co-author and assistant professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told Quartz.

In April, Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, told me that “people haven’t understood that [the pandemic] isn’t about the next couple of weeks [but] about the next two years.” Leaders should have taken the long view then. “We should have been thinking about what it would take to ensure schools open in the fall, and prevent the long-term harms of lost children’s development,” IPR sociologist Beth Redbird says. Instead, we started working our way through a serial monogamy of solutions, and, like spiraling army ants, marched forward with no sense of the future beyond the next few footsteps.

By 2013, as Etsy prepared to go public, the term hipsteader made appearances on websites about crab apple cordial and chevron knitting patterns. Since then, as the youngest consumers, Gen Z, eke out their identity, buzzwords like self-care and hygge (a Danish word for coziness) suggest the home-centered mindset is destined to grow. Then along came Covid-19 and a global recession. Shortages and the need to be frugal created more DIYers than ever. “When you’re worried that the marketplace won't function, you engage in more activities necessary to produce your own food or whatever you're most worried about,” said IPR sociologist Beth Redbird.

Black people are particularly disadvantaged by inequalities of wealth and opportunity in the United States — inequalities that are substantially a result of past and present racism. Black households with children have on average about one penny in wealth for every dollar held by white households with children, according to a recent analysis by the sociologists Christine Percheski and Christina Gibson-Davis. That wealth gap has increased in recent decades and, strikingly, the gap between Black and white households with children is wider than the overall wealth gap for Black and white households.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s long-standing policy prohibiting profit-sharing with college athletes effectively allows wealthy White students to profit off the labor of poor Black ones. That’s the stark conclusion of a new working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research co-authored by health economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite. The paper uses revenue and expense data for college athletic departments to trace the flow of billions in annual revenue generated by NCAA sports, particularly basketball and football.

A new study of the economics of college sports found that affluent White students are profiting off the labor of poor Black students. The study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, by health economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite, analyzed revenue data for all 65 athletic departments in the Power Five conferences, home to the NCAA's top Division I men's football and basketball programs, from 2006 to 2019. The researchers also collected data from student rosters across all sports in those departments in 2018, including data on the players' ethnicity and hometowns.

James Druckman, an IPR political scientist who has studied voter behavior and psychology extensively, pointed to “Rock the Vote” as the closest comparison to the NBA’s current efforts. He cautioned, however, that like so many other aspects of politics, the hyperpartisan nature of today’s media climate could blunt those efforts’ cumulative effect. “I suspect that if people still perceive there to be nonpartisan actors who engage in mobilization, that these methods would work during this election cycle,” Druckman said. “The question is the extent to which people believe anyone involved in politics is not politicized these days.”

No group has been spared the economic destruction of the coronavirus pandemic, which pushed unemployment to levels unseen since the Great Depression. But it’s proven especially devastating for single mothers. “It’s often lower-earning single moms where the effects are most severe,” said Matthias Doepke, an economist and IPR associate. “There’s almost no escape. “There’s no second earner to fall back on.”

According to a paper released Thursday by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, which IPR political scientist Daniel Galvin co-authored, the rate at which workers suffered violations of minimum-wage law increased almost in lock step with the unemployment rate during the last recession. On average, the workers on the receiving end of these violations lost about one-fifth of their hourly wage.

If college athletes were paid like their professional counterparts, how much would they earn? That’s one question a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research seeks to answer. A star quarterback like Clemson University’s Trevor Lawrence would probably reap $2.4 million per season, according to “Who Profits from Amateurism? Rent-Sharing in Modern College Sports." The researchers, led by Craig Garthwaite of the Kellogg School of Management and an IPR associate, address the value of the education that student-athletes receive. But they say the minimum compensation for backup players would be more than double tuition and other assistance on average.

When the coronavirus pandemic closed schools and daycares for millions of children in March, transforming working parents into teachers and caretakers virtually overnight, the country's long standing childcare crisis was catapulted into the collective consciousness. And since women take on a significantly higher portion of child care duties – 40% more, according to one study by Northwestern University economists, including economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke – the burden is disproportionately falling on them. According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress, millennial mothers are nearly three times more likely than millennial fathers to report being unable to work due to a school or childcare closure due to the pandemic.

As of April, food insecurity in the United States had doubled over all and tripled among households with children over pre-pandemic levels, according to a report published by Diane Schanzenbach, an economist and director of Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research based on data in the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey. Schanzenbach, said that the latest available figures, released in the middle of July, show that things have gotten a bit worse since April.

Families have been leaning heavily on charity for help. Nearly 470,000 people in Cook County visited food pantries in July, more than double the 205,000 who did so in January, according to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. The food bank distributed 93 million pounds of food during the fiscal year that ended June 30, by far the most in its 41-year history. Though food charities have absorbed much of the need, it’s unsustainable without government help, said economist Diane Schanzenbach, director of the Institute for Policy Research. SNAP, which allows people to buy groceries at retailers, feeds eight people for every 1 person fed by a food bank.

Despite the historic chaos of recent months, Donald Trump’s message in the 2020 campaign remains largely unchanged. He continues to focus on “law and order” in the streets, the dangerous agenda of the “radical left,” and protecting the country from nefarious outsiders. That message has proved remarkably effective at securing the allegiance of his party. Can Joe Biden convince enough voters that “hope is more powerful than fear”? Journalist and IPR associate Peter Slevin joined Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the Republican National Convention and Trump’s strategy for winning a second term.

Donald Trump’s re-nominating convention this week is united around his vision for the party, but a loss in November will expose deep rifts in the GOP, forcing a battle over whether his brand of divisive, populist politics will last. Win or lose, few in Republican politics think the party can ever return to the roots Ronald Reagan planted 40 years ago that embraced small government and an interventionist foreign policy. Democrats win roughly 80% of non-White voters, and the country is on course to become a majority-minority country as soon as 2044. So the long-term viability of the Republican Party relies on getting larger numbers of working-class, White voters to turn out. “Eventually the Republican Party is going to have to adapt to demographic change,” said Daniel Galvin, IPR political scientist and author of a book on presidential party building. “The question is what happens in the meantime.”

It’s now known that SARS-CoV-2 will leave a portion of the more than 23 million people it’s infected with a litany of physical, cognitive and psychological impairments, like scarred lungs, post-viral fatigue and chronic heart damage. What’s still emerging is the extent to which the enduring disability will weigh on health systems and the labor force. That burden may continue the pandemic’s economic legacy for generations, adding to its unprecedented global cost -- predicted by Australian National University scholars to reach as much $35.3 trillion through 2025 as countries try to stop the virus’s spread. “The bottom line is that the physical, long-term health consequences are very serious for people’s welfare, and in economic terms,” said IPR economist Hannes Schwandt.

To help stop the spread of the coronavirus sweeping the globe, health experts have urged people around the world to wash their hands frequently. But recent research shows that many people have been unable to follow those guidelines because they lack access to clean running water. In fact, one 2019 study suggests that one quarter of households in low and middle income countries don’t have secure water access. In a comment published in Nature Sustainability on Monday, researchers urge policymakers to change that. “We all need to stop taking water for granted,” said IPR anthropologist Sera Young.

"In a year of rising discontent with Trump, an increasing number of Republicans are going public with their disdain for the President—and, in many cases, for the politicians and operatives who have cheered him, indulged him, or stood by without an opposing word during his Administration. These dissenters’ histories vary, as do their tactics, but they are united in the goal of denying him a second term. Groups such as the Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump are delivering dozens of attack videos, often responding within hours to the latest Trump calumny. Republicans opposing Trump were given prime-time slots during last week’s Democratic National Convention," reports journalist and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

While the coronavirus was initially said to spare the young, that no longer appears to be true medically, and economically it never was—certainly not for the 10 million children below the poverty line and even larger numbers just above it. With hunger rising, classrooms closing and parental stress surging, the pandemic is a threat to low-income children of epochal proportions, one that could leave an entire generation bearing its scars. At special risk of long-term harm are young people joining the work force, for whom the earnings penalties are large and lasting. Till von Wachter and IPR economist Hannes Schwandt found that a five-point rise in unemployment rates (an increase smaller than today’s) costs disadvantaged workers about a quarter of their first few years’ pay, because they work less and receive lower wages. “Some people fear that if you give people benefits you create a culture of poverty,” said Diane Schanzenbach, an IPR economist. “This shows the opposite is true—if you invest in poor kids, they’re less likely to need benefits as adults.”

Public health officials worldwide agree on the need to make vaccines more accessible and launch social media campaigns that educate parents about vaccine efficacy while addressing their anxieties. Skepticism remains rampant across the United States. A nationwide poll released earlier this month by researchers at Harvard, Northeastern, Rutgers and Northwestern universities, including IPR political scientist James Druckman, found that only 52% of Black Americans say they are likely to seek a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many people around the world to reevaluate state capacity in their own country and contrast it with that of other peer countries. For far too long, the debate involving government’s role in society has been dominated by economists (especially those sympathetic to the small-government movement) who created the impression that the raw size of the government (measured, for instance, by government consumption’s share of GDP) was of critical importance. In “Starving the Beast: Ronald Reagan and the Tax Cut Revolution,” IPR sociologist Monica Prasad offers an intriguing historical examination of the forces that gave rise to the modern-day Republican Party’s preoccupation with tax cuts and its implicit abandonment of fiscal discipline.

"Between July 30 and Aug. 1, we fielded a nationally representative poll of 1,273 U.S. adults with the survey firm Prolific to assess these questions. The vast majority of our respondents, 62 percent, expressed strong opposition to schools reopening. Only 19 percent felt schools should reopen, and the remaining 19 percent said they were undecided. Those opinions divide more by race and party. Black Americans were the most likely to oppose reopening schools. Seventy percent of Black Americans oppose reopening schools, a jump from the 57 percent of Whites who do. The gap was largest between Democrats and Republicans, with 74 percent of Democrats opposing the reopening, compared with only 35 percent of Republicans," writes IPR public policy expert Sally Nuamah.

Peter Slevin, IPR associate and professor of media and politics at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, says there hasn’t been a cohesive attack on the democratic presidential ticket by the Trump campaign. He notes that during the Democratic National Convention that President Trump has struggled to come up with a winning message.

Publishing in the summer 2020 issue of Education Next, a team of three economists led by IPR economist Kirabo Jackson found student achievement suffered in proportion to how much funding was cut. Specifically, they calculated that a $1,000 reduction in per-pupil spending after the 2008 recession reduced reading and math test scores by about 1.6 percentile points and college going by 2.6 percent. Spending fell by less than a $1,000, on average across the nation after the 2008 recession. (The drop was about $860 per student over the course of three years, according to my calculation.) But since education is decentralized among more than 12,000 school districts, some schools were hit with much larger per-pupil cuts than others. Jackson’s team of economists calculated that school systems that rely on state funds, as opposed to local property taxes, were hit with the largest cuts.

The airport test is not just a random query, it’s a real type of evaluation that IPR associate and sociologist Lauren Rivera found was used in some form or another by the majority of hiring professionals she interviewed at banking, consulting and law firms for her book “Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs.” Rivera conducted interviews with 120 hiring managers and mid-level employees at top-tier firms between 2006 and 2008, finding that more than half ranked cultural “fit” as the most important criterion in the job interview stage, even above analytical skills. Something in the hiring process is deeply broken when hiring discrimination against Black Americans has not changed in 25 years, according to a meta-analysis by IPR sociologist Lincoln Quillian published in the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences.

The consumer price index out Wednesday tells us more about how much people were paying for goods in July. It’s up 0.6%, with gasoline driving things. The cost of food that we buy to eat at home was up more than 4% from a year ago in July. For a growing number of Americans who depend on food assistance programs, the rising cost of food is straining how much they can buy. “A couple of months ago, we saw the largest single-month increase in food prices that we’ve seen in the last 50 years,” said IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach.

COVID-19’s disproportionate economic toll on women could create a larger gender wage gap during and immediately after this downturn, suggests a new study. But the so-called she-cession could also fuel changes that decrease gender inequality in the long run, the analysis adds. Women in the U.S. have endured steep job losses due to their high representation in “high-contact” service sectors such as restaurants, travel and hospitality, which social-distancing guidelines have capsized, according to a working paper distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research and authored by researchers from the University of California San Diego, Northwestern University, including economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke, and the University of Mannheim.

It's one of the cheapest ways to help kids in extremely poor countries: Twice a year, give them a 50-cent pill to kill off nasty intestinal parasites. Now, a landmark study finds the benefits carry over long into adulthood—and the impact is massive. But dig deeper and the issue quickly becomes more complicated— and controversial. To understand why, it helps to start at the beginning, when newly minted economist—and future Nobel prize winner—Michael Kremer says he stumbled into this study by lucky happenstance. Economist and IPR associate Chris Udry, an economist at Northwestern University who specializes in rural economic activity in sub-Saharan Africa, says he finds the study both rigorous and persuasive. Seema Jayachandran, an IPR economist who specializes in the economic impact of gender differences and who was not involved in the study, says it's notable that deworming didn't just fail to increase the women's individual income, it had no effect on their household income.

The number of families experiencing food insecurity has hit a record due to the pandemic, and Black and Hispanic families are disproportionately affected. A new study from Northwestern University, based on Census Bureau data, shows that 40% of Black households and 36% of Hispanic households are struggling to afford food. Meanwhile, about 22% of white households are reporting food insecurity. “We’re seeing right now that food insecurity is higher than we’ve ever seen it before,” says Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Director of the Institute for Policy Research, which conducted the study. “But we’re also seeing the depths of the recession we’re in right now is much worse than anything we’ve seen before.”

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has said he will announce his running mate this week, ahead of the virtual Democratic convention. His choice would be only the second female Democratic nominee for vice president in American history. With Joe Biden’s announcement expected any day — we wondered: what sort of influence will a female candidate have on the campaign, and politics more generally? And will Biden heed calls to select a woman of color for the job? The 21st Show spoke to political scientist and IPR associate Julie Lee Merseth about the significance of choosing a female vice presidential candidate and how race could play into his decision.

A police force with a history of brutality and racism created a new crime-fighting team, but on one of its first forays into the streets, the group did not wear body cameras, which would have shown whether a man accused of firing a gun at officers was, in fact, armed. Questions about the lack of body cameras extend beyond activist groups. One law enforcement expert found it baffling that the department did not equip with cameras officers whose job it is to wade into violent situations in a city where there remains widespread suspicion of police. “It is really shocking, actually,” said Wesley Skogan, who studies crime and law enforcement at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. “Without body camera footage, it (the shooting) will be disputed until the end of time.”

Saga in particular has produced remarkable results. The nonprofit, which works in a handful of large, urban districts, pairs each of its tutors with two struggling ninth graders. In a study published several years ago, a group of researchers, including IPR economist Jonathan Guryan and UChicago's Education Lab, found significant GPA increases in both math and other subjects among students using a tutoring system modeled on the one provided through AmeriCorps, along with reduced likelihood of course failures. The knowledge gaps that kids will bring with them to school after the coronavirus pandemic could be exactly the sort that Saga-style tutoring can address, experts suggest. The nonprofit’s work suggests that tutoring can help even older children get back on track when they fall behind.

In March 2020, Congress created a pandemic food benefit program called Pandemic-EBT (P-EBT) to provide food assistance to school-age children during school closures. On July 30, the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project reported that the P-EBT program helped 2.7–3.9 million children avoid going hungry. As the beginning of the school year nears, the report’s findings demonstrate the ongoing importance of the P-EBT program in helping families put food on the table. According to IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, one of the report’s authors, “Families need this ongoing support to help put food on the table now, especially with high rates of food hardship, schools across America starting remotely, high unemployment rates, and the federal unemployment insurance benefit boost no longer in place.”

A preliminary analysis released by IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos and N3 in March of the work of eight outreach organizations via Communities Partnering 4 Peace, or CP4P, offered promising initial findings: Since the partnership began in 2017, shootings and homicides declined an average of 1 percent per month in CP4P areas, where shootings and homicides were increasing by 2 percent previously.

Families across the Chicago area will be getting yet another taste of home schooling this fall, as many school districts opt for some degree of remote learning due to risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s more helpful to focus on helping children develop strong learning habits and practices than specific content, said Nichole Pinkard, professor of learning sciences and IPR associate. Whatever your schedule, plan breaks throughout the day and remain flexible, said IPR developmental psychologist Terri Sabol. “Be kind to yourself,” she said. “That’s what good teachers do, right? Good teachers can read the room and switch things up.”

"Silence is dangerous in the middle of a mishandled pandemic, particularly if you have domain expertise. Silence can be interpreted as acquiescence, or as fear of the consequences of entering the public arena. But the consequences of silence can be even more severe—they can have a high cost in human health, lives and livelihoods. ... It takes courage to sign a document critical of this administration, to write an op-ed or even to speak frankly to those who may not share your understanding of the value of scientific expertise. But an engaged and well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy. We hope it always will be," writes IPR economist Charles F. Manski.

New York City is the only major U.S. school system still considering in-person classes this fall, after Chicago rebuffed President Donald Trump’s calls to reopen to avoid further strain on the U.S. economy. The economic effects of keeping children out of school go beyond matters of convenience and pocketbook. They also expose imbalances in the economy, with some children unable to access the internet as easily as others. “The first-order short-term economic impacts will be likely centered around what this does to families needing childcare; loss of school meals for the kids making hunger worse; and whatever furloughing the district is doing,” said IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach. “Long term, the costs of all of this lost learning will be with us for decades.”

Despite a boost from federal stimulus funds, drops in state funding for education during the Great Recession effectively ended a 50-year upward trend in national reading and math scores, according to a paper appearing Tuesday in the journal Education Next. A $1,000 cut in per-pupil spending also led to a decline in the college enrollment rate among “students on track to become first-time college freshmen,” especially at two-year schools, according to the analysis, led by IPR labor economist Kirabo Jackson.

Frustrated by a nationwide testing backlog, the governors of six states took the unusual step of banding together on Tuesday to reduce the turnaround time for coronavirus test results from days to minutes. The bipartisan plan highlights the depth of the testing problems in the United States more than six months into the pandemic. Most people who are tested for the virus do not receive results within the 24 to 48 hours recommended by public health experts to effectively stall the virus’s spread and quickly conduct contact tracing, according to a new national survey by researchers, including IPR political scientist James Druckman, from Harvard University, Northeastern University, Northwestern University and Rutgers University.

IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach joined “Chicago Tonight” with economist Casey Mulligan to discuss the state of the economy during the pandemic and the unemployment assistance from the recent government stimulus bill. She noted that unemployment rates and food insecurity have risen like we've never seen before. "Many, many families are suffering," Schanzenbach said. "There are 5 unemployed persons for every single job opening, and this additional money that's coming through in unemployment insurance system is keeping a lot of families afloat."

There’s the question of race, which permeates and complicates everything surrounding crime. It’s not just trash and loitering that make people perceive a neighborhood as more dangerous regardless of the crime rate. When Lincoln Quillian, an IPR sociologist at Northwestern University, analyzed data from three surveys of crime and safety in cities across America, he found that people perceive their neighborhood as more dangerous—regardless of the actual crime rate—if more young Black men live there. That was true for both Black and White respondents of the surveys, but in some cities the effect was significantly more pronounced in White people.

The 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed redlining. But experts say the barriers between Blacks and homeownership didn't evaporate with the law. A Northwestern University study, worked on by IPR sociologist Lincoln Quillian, of bias in the housing market published in January found that while overt forms of discrimination—a real estate agent who won't return a phone call or who will deny that a listing is available—have decreased over the past four decades, discrimination in the mortgage market showed little change from 1968 to 2016.

On Wednesday, The House passed two bills, the Child Care is Essential Act and the Child Care for Economic Recovery Act. They would provide a combined $100 billion in direct child care funding over the next five years, including $50 billion in immediate pandemic relief. A very real potential outcome of this crisis, should government aid not pass the Senate, is an exodus of women from the workforce, Matthias Doepke, a highly cited Northwestern economist and IPR associate who recently published an analysis of the gendered effects of the coronavirus pandemic, told Business Insider.

The realities of the lopsided division of care inside American households has been on full display since work left the office and entered the home—for those who kept their jobs, anyway. Women in 2020 still take on the overwhelming majority of child care responsibilities, spending 40 percent more time watching their children than fathers in couples in which the parents are married and working full time, according to a study by economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke and his colleagues.

A June survey showed that 60 to 75 percent of Americans were still practicing social distancing. A partisan gap exists, but it has narrowed. “In public-opinion polling in the U.S., high-60s agreement on anything is an amazing accomplishment,” says Beth Redbird, an IPR sociologist, who led the survey. People of all political bents became more dissatisfied with the Trump administration. As the economy nose-dived, the health-care system ailed, and the government fumbled, belief in American exceptionalism declined. “Times of big social disruption call into question things we thought were normal and standard,” Redbird told me. “If our institutions fail us here, in what ways are they failing elsewhere?” And whom are they failing the most?

Chicago is currently in the midst of one its deadliest years in recent memory with 414 homicides, which according to the Chicago Tribune, is a 51% increase over this time last year. Research has shown a significant correlation between exposure to community violence such as experiencing or witnessing drug sales, violent crimes, and otherwise aggressive behaviors and depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Trauma is the effects of exposure to a deeply troubling or horrifying experience(s). “Experiencing violence is a form of trauma witnessing”, says psychiatrist and IPR associate Crystal Clark. “The gun violence that we see in Chicago is a result of a disinvestment in the Black community that perpetuates the trauma that the Black community experience."

An emergency federal program created in March to offset the loss of school meals led to substantial short-term reductions in child hunger, according to a new analysis of census data by the Brookings Institution, which included IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach. As the coronavirus pandemic closed the nation’s schools, the program, Pandemic-EBT, aimed to help the 30 million children who rely on subsidized breakfasts and lunches, an often-overlooked part of the American safety net. The program distributed lump-sum payments equal to $5.70 for each lost school day, or roughly $300 per eligible child in a typical state. In the week after each state issued its payments, child hunger fell by about 30 percent, the researchers found, reducing the number of hungry children by at least 2.7 million.

At first blush, the debate over police actions, tactics and discipline may seem like a big-city problem. It is anything but, however. "The dangerous places are not the big places," says Wesley Skogan, professor emeritus at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. "The dangerous places are the mid- to small-sized places. They get into more trouble, relative to the number of people they police." Skogan, a pre-eminent police researcher, says small departments have fewer resources than larger counterparts and therefore have less training, supervision and pay.

To assess where the country is heading now, The New York Times interviewed 20 public health experts — not just clinicians and epidemiologists, but also historians and sociologists, because the spread of the virus is now influenced as much by human behavior as it is by the pathogen itself. Americans are more accepting of social distancing than the media sometimes portrays, said IPR sociologist Beth Redbird, who since March has conducted regular surveys of 8,000 adults about the impact of the virus. “About 70 percent of Americans report using all forms of it,” she said. “And when we give them adjective choices, they describe people who won’t distance as mean, selfish or unintelligent, not as generous, open-minded or patriotic.”

"The rule would, though, encourage businesses to maintain up-to-date phone and email details for their customers, which will also aid contact tracers in their efforts to track down people who have been exposed to the virus. Our proposal makes it more likely that customers will learn about exposures—and fast. This is a simple, common-sense approach. It’s a deal that should be easy even for lawmakers at loggerheads to strike. The biggest winner would be public health," writes law professor and IPR associate Daniel Rodriguez.

First came the boycott of Goya foods after the company’s CEO, Robert Unanue, appeared this month at a White House event and praised President Trump. That was swiftly followed by a “buycott,” the reaction from Trump supporters who pledged to buy up the brand’s products—a movement egged on by Trump and his daughter, Ivanka, who posed with Goya beans in photos posted on social media. Brayden King, a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, says that, first of all, boycotts can be effective. The power of a boycott comes down to companies fearing “reputational harm,” which is business-speak for a very bad look, one that could affect a company in the short and long runs.

The Chicago Tribune is making a move to separate its news reporting and opinion columns in its print edition, and it’s causing a strong reaction among readers. The changes come as the line between opinion writing and news reporting in print, social media and on cable news has grown increasingly blurry. “It’s a good first step,” said Charles Whitaker, dean of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. “For decades, I don’t think people have really distinguished between opinion and news … so the more that we can create signposts that help make that distinction clear for the reader, I think the better off we’ll be.”

The news about the needy in recent weeks has at times seemed at odds with itself. As surveys find more people are going hungry, evidence suggests that increased federal aid, in response to the pandemic-driven rise in unemployment, has prevented a surge in poverty. IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach argues that the sheer volume of evidence coming from four separate surveys fortifies her conclusion that hardship has increased, as do lines outside food banks and a surge in food stamp applications. “Every way you cut the data points in the same direction—that food hardship is substantially elevated,” she said.

There were only 45,500 Black farmers—roughly 1.3% of all US farmers—in the United States in 2017 according to the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture. A century ago that figure was much, much higher. In 1920, the USDA counted 925,708 Black farmers, amounting to about 14% of all farmers at the time. Over the years, Black farmers have been driven off their land and faced discrimination from the Department of Agriculture. But a new generation of young Black farmers is getting into the business. It's also a way to help provide food to Black communities, which often suffer disproportionately from food insecurity, Penniman said. "[They're] thinking that becoming farmers would allow them the means to be able to provide food to those who need it most in the community." A recent study published by IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach found that during the pandemic, food insecurity for US households with children has hit Black and Hispanic respondents particularly hard.

Across the U.S., families are filled with uncertainty about what school will look like in the fall, and those feelings are particularly acute for parents of rising kindergartners. At a moment of transition that can set the stage for the next dozen years, parents who have options are struggling to decide whether it’s worth beginning school if their children might have to wear masks, skip recess or experience kindergarten on a screen. It’s yet another pandemic-related conundrum that lacks obvious solutions, said Diane Schanzenbach, an economist and director of the university’s Institute for Policy Research.

Some 43 million people—or more than one in eight Americans—received food stamps in May, an increase of 6.2 million in three months since the coronavirus pandemic swept the country and economic recession threw millions of people out of work. SNAP enrollment is the highest since October 2017. “It’s the double-digit unemployment rate (that is) driving the increase in SNAP,” said IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach. “The real question is how high will that stay. SNAP rolls are driven by the macroeconomy, and right now the increase in SNAP is the safety net working the way it should.”

"Americans are beginning to pass judgment on their leaders for their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and their judgment appears increasingly harsh, especially for governors who rushed to reopen early and for the president who encouraged them to do so. The latest wave of our ongoing 50-state survey, conducted June 12-28 by the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States, finds an average decline of almost 10 percentage points since April in public approval of their governors’ handling of the COVID outbreak. Fixing the public health crisis also appears necessary to fix an emerging crisis of political standing and trust," writes IPR political scientist James Druckman and his colleagues.

More than 1,200 members of the US National Academy of Sciences have rebuked Donald Trump’s “denigration of scientific expertise”, an unusual move for a community which has historically avoided the political sphere. Charles Manski, a co-organizer and IPR economist, acknowledged that some might view the letter as political but said the scientists do not. They just want policy to be informed by the best possible information. “It’s one thing for the political establishment not to respond very well to a crisis that happens around the world,” Manski said. “It’s quite another thing to be actively denigrating the science and making things up routinely.”

More than six million people enrolled in food stamps in the first three months of the coronavirus pandemic, an unprecedented expansion that is likely to continue as more jobless people deplete their savings and billions in unemployment aid expires this month. Food stamps — formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — support young and old, healthy and disabled, the working and the unemployed, making it the closest thing the United States has to a guaranteed income. “SNAP is the universal safety net,” said Diane Schanzenbach, an IPR economist.

Water insecurity has been a major problem for communities across the world and has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. IPR anthropologist Sera Young, at Northwestern University, joins the podcast to unpack the wide-ranging impacts that water scarcity has, even in first-world nations. "Water insecurity is fundamental to well-being under the best of circumstances." she told Gallup, as she explains how people around the globe are struggling to wash their hands and shelter-in-place because of the lack of access to water.

The number of families experiencing food insecurity has hit a record due to the pandemic, and Black and Hispanic families are disproportionately affected. A new study from Northwestern University, based on Census Bureau data, shows that 40% of Black households and 36% of Hispanic households are struggling to afford food. Meanwhile, about 22% of white households are reporting food insecurity. “We’re seeing right now that food insecurity is higher than we’ve ever seen it before,” says Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Director of the Institute for Policy Research, which conducted the study. “But we’re also seeing the depths of the recession we’re in right now is much worse than anything we’ve seen before.”

A pair of earthquakes that struck the remote California desert 1 year ago have raised the risk of “the big one” hitting Southern California, according to a new study. The research finds that the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, quakes shifted underground stresses, making the San Andreas fault—the state’s longest and most dangerous fault—three times more likely to rupture. Amid all this anxiety, there is some good news. California has deployed a system that can provide digital warnings that outpace the speed of earthquake waves. If a Garlock earthquake triggered a San Andreas earthquake, it would be likely to begin far north of Los Angeles—in a perfect position for the warning system. “In most early-warning sequences, the warning would be a matter of seconds,” geophysicist and IPR associate Stein Stein says. “But here for people in the densely built-up areas, it could be tens of seconds.” That’s enough time for trains to stop, the gas network to be shut down, and for a dentist to remove the drill from a patient’s mouth.

IPR developmental psychologist Terri Sabol warned that school systems will also need to consider how social distancing will alter in-person learning and perhaps diminish the benefits of a full-scale return. Schools have moved significantly away from desk-bound learning, she said, and now bustle with activity. “I think the real challenge for schools is how do you provide developmentally appropriate, high-quality learning experiences while maintaining safety of students and staff,” said Sabol, a former elementary school teacher. “You walk into any high-quality classroom, it’s active.”

IPR sociologist Beth Redbird, at Northwestern University, who runs the school's ongoing COVID-19 Social Change Survey, said the pandemic—once largely centered in New York—has started to hit close to home for Americans living in these states, sickening and killing loved ones and overwhelming hospitals. "I think by and large people are more worried," she told ABC News. Redbird and other experts said that while these grim circumstances will help communities accept stricter COVID-19 regulations, they warned that local, state and federal leaders need to come together with succinct plans and messaging if they want to see any progress.

"Contact tracing — or the identifying of individuals who have a disease and their contacts—can save lives. As cities across the country step up their contact tracing efforts to battle COVID-19, epidemiological research supports the efficacy of this approach. The idea is to identify the social network of an infected person and provide treatment as quickly as possible to that person and others in their network. The swift and rapid response to the infected individuals will hopefully stop or slow the spread of the disease. The same techniques might be used to combat the public health epidemic of gun violence surging in recent weeks and months in cities across the U.S.," writes IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos.

"When white parents have critical and honest conversations with their children about the advantages they have unfairly inherited, they can play a profound role in remedying the pervasive legacy of racism and eliminating discrimination and prejudice. Part of the solution is to have more critical conversations about race and racism. These conversations should happen between parents and their children, but also with other family members and relatives. Open dialogue about racism can be part of a larger comprehensive, intergenerational and societal movement to eliminate racism and its consequences. These conversations are not about instilling white guilt, but rather providing children with the tools to become strong anti-racist partners," argues IPR developmental psychologist Onnie Rogers.

According to IPR developmental psychologist Terri Sabol, at Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy, schools are faced "with a nearly impossible task." "Prioritize the health and safety of teachers, students, and their families while ensuring that education meets the needs of young children and families," she said in a statement. Sabol said it's possible to strike a balance, "but it will not be easy."

"Social programs that alleviate poverty and enrich the lives of millions of people are coming under pressure. But a new study suggests that even if fiscal prudence were the only consideration, officials taking a long view should think twice before cutting social programs, because many them ultimately turn a profit for taxpayers. The study, by two Harvard economists, found that many programs—especially those focused on children and young adults—made money for taxpayers, when all costs and benefits were factored in," writes Seema Jayachandran.

Blameless conduct offers no guarantees to African Americans. A study last year by scholars Vesla Weaver of Johns Hopkins University, Andrew Papachristos of Northwestern and Michael Zanger-Tishler of Yale found that Black people were far more likely to be arrested at the start of the 21st century than they were two decades earlier—even though crime rates rose by only a modest amount. That means a lot of innocent people were subjected to humiliation and harassment by police—an experience that is bound to foster anger and alienation. The more Black people fear and distrust cops, the less likely they are to cooperate in combating crime. Nationally, crime rates have fallen by 40% over the past two decades. But Northwestern University sociologists Beth Redbird and Kat Albrecht note that racial disparities in law enforcement have gotten worse, not better. “While the average police agency in 1999 arrested 5.48 Blacks for every White,” they write in a new paper, “the 2015 average was 9.25 arrests, nearly twice that.”

In the wake of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of police, many Americans have been rethinking how everyday language may contribute to systemic racism. While critics say the push to rethink words and names overlooks more important issues, supporters say those terms often carry weight the people using them might not be conscious of. “A lot of people will bring up this issue and say changing names is some form of censorship,” said Annette D’Onofrio, a sociolinguist and assistant professor in Northwestern University’s linguistics department. “It’s important to reflect on the fact that the names we use for things carry all kinds of … social and historical meaning."

As jobs vanish, incomes drop and food prices rise, more Americans are going to bed hungry — and advocates warn that without intervention from Congress, those numbers could rise to a level unseen in modern times. A study from IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach at Northwestern University found that the pandemic roughly doubled food insecurity in the United States. The food assistance nonprofit Feeding America estimates that with household finances decimated by the coronavirus, around 40 percent of people visiting food banks are first-time recipients of food assistance.

Like New York, Chicago had already seen an increase in homicides and shootings in the first part of the year. But while the violence tapered off in New York under stay-at-home orders, shootings in Chicago remained steady, likely because of gang warfare, said Wesley Skogan, who studies crime at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. Seventeen people were fatally shot in Chicago and 70 wounded, one of the bloodiest holiday weekends in memory there. Gangs “are not particularly deterred by the risks of being out there,” Skogan said. “Of all the things they are likely to be worried about, COVID is way down the list.”

Nearly four in 10 Black and Hispanic households with children are struggling to feed their families during the coronavirus pandemic—a dramatic spike that is exacerbating racial inequities and potentially threatening the health of millions of young Americans. The percentage of families who are considered food insecure has surged across all groups and is already much higher than during the depths of the Great Recession, according to new research by economists at Northwestern University based on Census Bureau data. “This is uncharted territory,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist and director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. “We’ve never seen food insecurity rates double, or nearly triple—and the persistent race gaps are just appalling.”

In all, nine children under 18 have been killed since June 20 as Chicago reels from another wave of gun violence. The violence comes amid a wrenching debate nationwide about policing in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of the police. Those who defend the police say that the violence shows they need more support, not less, and that it is people living in high-crime areas who most need effective policing. The Chicago Police Department let its community policing program wither about two decades ago, said Wesley G. Skogan, of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. Now, young police officers canvassing unfamiliar blocks have found that residents do not open their doors out of fear of being seen talking to a police officer, he said.

The coronavirus has amplified the challenges pregnant women face. And even more so for Black and Latina women, who might be disproportionately affected by COVID-19, according to recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, and who experience extra burdens of not only implicit racism within the health care industry, but also socioeconomic factors that can impact their ability to access care. “COVID-19 brought its own set of issues around disparities, but also highlights issues that have been there all along,” said Ann Borders, an OB-GYN in the NorthShore University Health System, executive director of the Illinois Perinatal Quality Collaborative, and IPR associate. The latest data, she said, confirms concerns doctors like her have always had about pregnant women’s vulnerability. It also confirms the need to be extra vigilant, she said.

At first, many thought the pandemic would lead to a baby boom. But that may not be the case. It’s hard to predict the future, especially right now. But one sociology professor says history has taught us that a recession and unrest does not equal more babies. “I’m fairly confident that we'll have fewer babies in 9 to 12 months,” said IPR sociologist Christine Percheski. This is not what we were seeing in some headlines early on, with some guessing sheltering in place would end in the maternity ward. “That was very misguided. This is not a snowstorm,” Percheski said.

What happened? It’s a question researchers want to answer in communities hardest hit by COVID-19, and they have a new antibody test in hand to help them. “In Chicago, there are huge inequities in the risk of infection and the risk of mortality for COVID-19. So African Americans are three times more likely than whites to die of infection. Latinos right now and Latinx communities the rate of infection is four times higher than predominately white neighborhoods. Why is that?” Thom McDade, Northwestern University professor of anthropology, said.

Northwestern University scientists will be asking Chicagoans to prick their fingers and send in a dried blood sample as part of an effort to figure out why some parts of the city are hit so much harder by COVID-19 than others nearby — research they hope could help control future disease flare-ups. For example, the study is comparing the 60612 ZIP code, which includes the Near West Side and had an infection rate exceeding 1,000 cases per 100,000 people, to 60622, which includes Ukrainian Village and had an infection rate below 644 per 100,000. Researchers will also collect web-based surveys of the participants and analyze other data. “The numbers are shocking,” said Thomas McDade, the IPR biological anthropologist leading the effort at Northwestern. “So why is that?”

What if a single, cheap, easy-to-administer, and race-neutral policy could help close the country’s chasmic racial wealth gap in less than a generation? Reader, it exists. It is called a baby-bond program. For something like $80 billion a year—roughly 2 percent of the annual federal budget, less than a tenth of the annual cost of Social Security—the United States could not only end its most pernicious forms of poverty, reduce wealth inequality, improve social mobility, foster self-sufficiency among poor families, and increase family net worth en masse, but also put black and white families on more equal footing. There is a strong moral case for doing that, and a strong economic case, too. The average white family is 10 times wealthier than the average black family. Black families with kids have a single penny in wealth for every dollar that white families with kids have, according to a study by IPR social demographer Christine Percheski.

The drugmaker behind the experimental COVID-19 treatment remdesivir has announced how much it will charge for the drug, after months of speculation as the company tried to figure out how to balance profit and public health needs in the middle of a pandemic. "Gilead will make a good amount of money selling this product," Craig Garthwaite, director of the health care program at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and IPR associate, told NPR. "And that's really the return other people have been looking at. In the end, really, the other firms aren't necessarily looking at the price Gilead charges. What they're really looking at is, what is the payoff that they get on their investment? "

A report out by UCI Law urges the media to prepare the American people for the likelihood of a delayed presidential election result in November due to high numbers of people voting by mail. One of the recommended steps amounts to a balancing act for news organizations: debunking misinformation without amplifying it. Jack Doppelt, a professor at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and IPR associate, joins CBSN to discuss the high stakes.

"This was not how the Republican runoff in the western North Carolina mountains was supposed to go. Lynda Bennett, a family friend of the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was Meadows’s pick to win his old House seat, in the state’s Eleventh Congressional District. A businesswoman, Sunday-school teacher, and longtime Republican Party volunteer, Bennett was suitably conservative and boasted at every turn that she was “pro-Trump.” But it didn’t work out. A twenty-four-year-old candidate named Madison Cawthorn, who won’t reach the eligibility age for Congress until his birthday, in August, crushed Bennett, by a margin of nearly two to one," reports journalist and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

American parents spend more time and money on their children than ever—and that was before the pandemic. Now, with remote school ending for the summer and a far-from-normal fall expected, parenting is becoming only more demanding. Many parents are nervous about the long-term effects on children of isolation, anxiety and a long break from academic and extracurricular activities. Their economic future has become only more uncertain. “The stakes really are very high,” said economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke, co-author of “Love, Money and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids." “Whether your kid goes to college matters tremendously these days, and learning losses, when they occur, are hard to make up later on."

Wealth, not income, is the means to security in America. The difference between the lived experience of black Americans and white Americans when it comes to wealth—along the entire spectrum of income from the poorest to the richest—can be described as nothing other than a chasm. According to research published this year by Christina Gibson-Davis at Duke University and Christine Percheski, an IPR sociologist at Northwestern University, that doesn’t even take into account the yet-unknown financial wreckage of Covid-19, the average black family with children holds just one cent of wealth for every dollar that the average white family with children holds.

According to a report by Glassdoor, entry level job openings dropped a whopping 68% in May, compared to the same time last year. A paper by IPR economist Hannes Schwandt and Till M. von Wachter of the University of California, Los Angeles found that when comparing the periods between 1976 to 2015, workers who entered the labor market during periods of high unemployment—such as during a recession—lag behind on wages as much as 60% (if there is a three-point rise in unemployment).

"Though race and racism are at the top of Americans’ public discussion, most white parents don’t talk about those issues with their kids. Resisting racism, challenging racist societal structures and advocating for equity have been an uphill battle shouldered predominantly by individuals, families and communities of color. Our research indicates that the more white parents talk with their children about the realities of American racism, the more aware those kids are, as adults, of inequalities in American life," writes IPR developmental psychologist Onnie Rogers.

A Facebook ad boycott gained momentum Tuesday, with seven major companies pledging to halt advertising with the social media platform for July to protest Facebook's failure to remove hate speech. But Brayden King, professor of Management and IPR associate, said boycotts involve more than impact on the bottom line. “Usually boycotts are effective not because they affect revenue or sales but because they affect reputation,’' King said. “So when a company is the target of a boycott, it’s not that consumers are refusing to buy the product that makes the boycott effective." The impact comes in the negative media attention.

Recent crises — involving health, the economy and police brutality — seem to have caused more Americans to question their country’s track record. So suggests the COVID-19 Social Change Survey, a daily, nationally representative survey about the pandemic run by Northwestern University social scientists since mid-March. On nearly every metric, the share of Americans rating the United States as “better” than other countries has declined since the pandemic began. These declines can be constructive only if they spur the public—and elected officials—to create conditions that would inspire more patriotism and trust. Such an outcome is not impossible, says Beth Redbird, IPR sociologist and principal investigator for the survey. “In times of great crisis, we can realize our institutions are not working for us,” Redbird says. “Maybe we decide it’s time to change institutions we’ve taken for granted.”

Women have lost jobs at a steeper rate than men during the coronavirus pandemic, a factor that is likely to hold back the economic recovery. Further, school and day-care closures triggered by the pandemic will likely hinder women's ability to re-enter the workforce, at least in the short run.Married women spend nearly twice as much time as their husbands caring for their children, according to a research paper by economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke, and co-authors. The gap in time spent on child care isn't just attributable to the relatively high share of stay-at-home moms. It remains even when both spouses work full-time: Married women with full-time jobs spend about 10.3 hours a week on child care, compared with 7.2 hours for married men.

Some analysts warn that hardship has grown, even if poverty rates have not. Diane Schanzenbach, an IPR economist, notes that food insecurity is twice its pre-pandemic rate and child hunger has risen even more. Part of the hardship may stem from the growth in income volatility — needy families generally lack credit or savings to sustain them through delays. “A lot of people aren’t seeing the money yet,” Ms. Schanzenbach said. “I’m worried about Congress taking its foot off the gas.”

A recent study showed that 45 percent of American fathers are spending more time on child care than they did before the pandemic. “The pandemic has reshaped the way fathers are involved with their families and children,” Craig Garfield, a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University and IPR associate, said when the study was presented. A paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research in April by economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke compared the pandemic to World War II, which lead to significant changes in American family dynamics and social norms, as millions of women joined the labor force for the first time. The comparison “suggests that temporary changes to the division of labor between the sexes have long-run effects.”

"Two new studies show that giving pay raises to low-wage workers is good for consumers, too. That finding could add momentum to efforts to help grocery store clerks, nursing home workers and delivery drivers who are being paid a minimum wage despite their efforts being so essential during the current pandemic. Supporters of raising the minimum wage usually make their case based on fairness and equity. That rationale is important, but the central finding of these studies — that a higher minimum wage can boost work force productivity and save lives — is a powerful one, too," writes IPR economist Seems Jayachandran.

For a long time in our country's history, black people were most likely direct descendants of enslaved Africans. IPR sociologist and African American studies scholar Celeste Watkins-Hayes described the adoption of the term African American as a "very deliberate move on the part of black communities to signify our American-ness, but also signify this African heritage." "Black" is often a better default that recognizes and celebrates the race, culture, and lived experiences of people all over the world. "The move that you see now towards black is really to recognize the global nature of blackness," Watkins-Hayes said. "So, I think that that is the more universal term."

In the case of an infectious disease, one could hardly say experiments are without risk. But perhaps we should be reframing the sprawling variety of responses as a chance to learn from the laboratory of those who do things differently. IPR economist Charles Manski argues persuasively that modelling only teaches us so much about an uncertain future, whether the modellers are economists or epidemiologists. Ultimately, one must learn from experience. The more experiences cities, states or nations are having, the faster we can learn from each other.

"A temporarily higher state unemployment rate at the age of labor market entry leads to precisely estimated increases in mortality that appear in the late thirties and increase until age 50," concludes a 2019 academic study titled, "Socioeconomic Decline and Death: Midlife Impacts of Graduating in a Recession," by IPR economist Hannes Schwandt and Till von Wachter of the University of California, Los Angeles. "These increases in mortality are driven to an important extent by a rise in both disease-related and 'external' causes, including lung cancer, liver disease, and drug poisoning. We also find entering the labor market during a recession has a substantial impact on a broad range of measures of socioeconomic status in middle age, including a decline in marriage rates, a rise in divorce rates, and a decline in family size."

Pediatrician Craig Garfield studies the roles of fathers in their children’s lives and is a professor of pediatrics and medical social sciences and IPR associate. “The pandemic has reshaped the way fathers are involved with their families and children,” he said via email. “Whether it’s play, reading a book or getting down on the floor and spending time with their kids, this is an unprecedented opportunity for fathers to be really involved.”

Many hospital systems in Illinois and across the country have been growing through acquisitions and mergers in recent years — a trend that could accelerate given the financial damage hospitals have sustained amid the COVID-19 pandemic, said Amanda Starc, an associate professor of strategy at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and IPR associate, who studies pricing and consolidation in health care.

In April, when a key enzyme couldn’t be delivered to his shuttered laboratory, IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade hunted for the package across the empty campus near Chicago, finally locating it at a loading dock. To verify the test’s accuracy, the biological anthropologist and his colleague, pharmacologist Alexis Demonbreun, asked friends and family if they’d be willing to spot them some blood. McDade took a sample from his wife over their kitchen table. The scientists’ goal is to look for people with coronavirus antibodies - proteins that indicate possible immunity - in Chicago-area neighborhoods with vastly different death rates. They want to study why the novel coronavirus is deadlier for some groups, such as African Americans and Latinos.

"The first line of defense against food insecurity is the school meals program, and we've never had a situation where you couldn't go to school for months," says Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist and director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. SNAP has been used as an economic stimulus in the past: In 2009, Congress passed legislation increasing monthly benefits by 13.6% for a family of four. "We know that during the Great Recession, it was a particularly effective policy, both to stimulate the economy and to alleviate need – and the need wasn't even as great then," Schanzenbach says. "That suggests to me that we should be having a stronger response, not a less strong response."

Medill School of Journalism Dean and IPR associate Charles Whitaker joins Ilyce Glink to address the lack of diversity in the magazine industry after news broke that Condé Nast newsrooms have neglected minority employees. Whitaker also describes how Medill has worked to educate his graduating class on encouraging diversity in newsrooms.

On a social level, the structure of police units also fuels the opportunity for these beliefs to be reinforced by fellow officers. Andrew Papachristos, an IPR sociology professor, has found that use of force actually spreads throughout police units via social networks. He and his colleagues used records from the Chicago Police Department to trace misconduct, mapping social and professional networks through which they could track the spread of violent behavior. They found that officers who fire their gun most often occupied the most central nodes of those networks. “Our studies show that there are quite a few bad apples, but what actually happens is the rest of that phrase: They spoil the bunch,” Papachristos says.

No one in Chicago’s black neighborhoods wants police killings or police brutality. That’s a given. Beyond that, black Chicagoans have varying ideas of what constitutes good policing. Sociologist and IPR associate Mary Pattillo has studied black Chicago neighborhoods for 25 years. Pattillo says that the relationship between black communities and the police is complex because the people in those communities are complex by socioeconomic status, homeownership rates, gender and age. “And that complexity within the black community leads to multiple experiences and thus positions about the usefulness of the police and how much police we want,” Pattillo said.

"A Kellogg School of Management team made up of psychologists, computer scientists, and network scientists applied AI based deep learning text analytics to estimate the reliability of a scientific paper’s results. Moving forward, this team endeavors to apply this method to Covid-19 research in order to determine the research which holds the most promise," writes Kellogg management and strategy professor and IPR associate Brian Uzzi.

Protests demanding racial justice in the wake of the recent deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade, among others, have left Americans trying to make sense of racial violence by the police, and energized to end brutality against black bodies. We believe this is an opportunity to share research on the Black Lives Matter movement with anyone interested in learning more. We suggest beginning with readings that explain the context for the development of Black Lives Matter as a movement in the racist history of the United States. IPR political scientist Chloe Thurston situates the Black Lives Matter movement in the historical context of American racial equality movements in protests against the U.S. justice system.

Young adults between 18 and 22 year old have been among the most diligent mask-wearers during the pandemic, said IPR sociologist Beth Redbird. But while that age group was quick to adopt masks, the usage has tailed off recently, said Redbird, who is leading CoronaData U.S., a daily survey of public opinions, behaviors and attitudes surrounding the coronavirus. The use of face coverings has been one of the more constant coronavirus-fighting habits observed in the survey, along with refraining from shaking hands, Redbird said. "Mask-wearing is one of those behaviors that's not terribly expensive, and it's not super hard to do," she said.

What prompted the worldwide protests against racially biased policing? The simplest answer would be that on May 25, a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, by kneeling on his neck for more than eight minutes, as millions of Americans have now witnessed in a video that went viral. But fully understanding the protests requires a larger recognition of systemic racism. Racial discrimination hinders access to the labor market. Even when job seekers have the same qualifications and are trained by researchers to exhibit comparable interpersonal skills, black applicants are still 50 percent less likely to get a “callback” or job offer. Hiring discrimination does not appear to be getting better with time, according to research by IPR sociologist Lincoln Quillian.

For every one dollar of accumulated wealth that white families have, black families have just one cent. That’s the finding of a new study from Northwestern University which used data on consumer finances from the Federal Reserve to track changes in family wealth from 2004 to 2016. The study found that Latino families fare slightly better, with eight cents for every dollar. IPR sociologist Christine Percheski, who co-authored the study, compared the wealth—assets minus debts—of households with children for black, white and Latino families, noting that a family’s wealth is key to a child’s future success. “Racial inequality in income for families with children has not grown recently, but racial wealth inequality has grown tremendously,” Percheski said. “The level of racial economic inequality in the U.S. is staggeringly high, and that is an important part of the story of racial violence and racial injustice and health disparities of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

As a call to action, defund the police can have a variety of meanings.”Dismantle, disinvest, defund, redirect, abolish—there may be some subtle differences between these… [but] there are some themes underneath them,” says Wesley Skogan, IPR professor emeritus of political science at Northwestern University. “You’d be hard pressed to find an abolitionist position,” Skogan says. (Camden, New Jersey is one of very few locales that has disbanded and restarted its police force from scratch.) “So it’s all really a question of the adjustments that need to be made.”

Fighting in close quarters doesn’t just fill us with the sense of threat. It physically hurts us. Claudia Haase, a developmental psychologist and IPR associate who has studied the effects on couples who fight over long periods of time, has seen how the physiology of fighting affects the health of partners. “Anger activates the cardiovascular system, so it makes your blood pressure go up, it makes your heart rate go up,” she said. Over time, that struggle can have serious physical consequences. “We found that based on 15 minutes of a marital disagreement conversation, we could predict the development of physical health symptoms over 20 years,” Haase said.

"The closure of schools has revealed the many roles that schools play, particularly in the lives of our most disinvested Black and Brown communities. And we demand that all responses to these diverging pandemics of racism, COVID-19, and school closure position public schools as a necessary part of any and all discussions, plans, and budgets regarding America's welfare state and thus the democratic future of this nation. The mental, social, physical, educational, political, and social well-being of the 50.8 million students, their families, and our entire society depends on it," writes IPR political scientist Sally Nuamah and her colleagues.

Large national surveys measuring the real-time impact of Covid-19 on households have found that food insecurity is much higher across the board than it was pre-pandemic. For all households, the rates have about doubled, according to an analysis of the COVID Impact Survey done by economists at Northwestern University. For households with children, they’ve nearly tripled. The data suggests 1 in 3 households with children is now reporting food insecurity, even with the aid Congress has already gotten out the door. “It would be a great time to perk up their benefits,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist and director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, of food stamp recipients. “I just can’t believe they haven’t.”

"It has been almost one year since a new coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 made its presence known to us. What started off as a small cluster of unusual pneumonia cases that cropped up in Wuhan, China, soon rippled out from there, causing infections around the globe. By March, Covid-19 had been declared a pandemic and essentially shut down many sectors of society in most countries," writes Dr. Sanjay Gupta in an op-ed for CNN health. He later references a study by IPR sociologist Beth Redbird.

With less than three months to go before the start of the fall semester, many residential colleges say they're confident they'll be able to resume some level of in-person operations even amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Undergirding that confidence is a belief in two tools: widespread coronavirus testing and contact tracing. There is evidence that relying on phone-tracking devices is not popular with Americans, even during a pandemic. Surveys conducted since March by IPR sociologist Beth Redbird, an assistant professor at Northwestern University, show that only 15 percent of Americans agree that the government should use GPS monitoring to track people who have tested positive for the coronavirus. Support is higher among whites than it is among blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans, she said. “I suspect because, like many systematic forces of government enforcement,” Redbird said, whites “don’t suffer the consequence of those things and the abuse of those things.”

Is Gen Z about to repeat millennials' financial woes? A new Bank of America Research report thinks so. "Like the financial crisis in 2008 to 2009 for millennials, Covid will challenge and impede Gen Z's career and earning potential," it reads, adding that a significant portion of Gen Z is entering adulthood in the midst of a recession, just as a cohort of millennials did. However, the report continued, Gen Z's proficiency with tech and tech-focused education might prove to be an asset when entering the workforce. And being forced to play financial catch-up can have benefits in the long run, IPR economist Hannes Schwandt previously told Business Insider. "Over time, what you see in these cohorts is a higher degree of mobility from one employer to the next," he said. "It helps them climb up the quality ladder."

Women helped pull the U.S. economy out of the last recession. This time around they are falling behind. The pandemic is disproportionately affecting women and threatening to wipe out decades of their economic progress. As the crisis drags on, some of the biggest pain points are among women of color and those with young children. These setbacks -- characterized by some economists as the nation’s first female recession -- stand in sharp contrast to the dramatic progress women made in the expansion following the last financial crisis.

"States can stop this ugly dynamic by changing laws and taking on police unions. Legislatures must give police departments greater latitude to investigate civilian complaints and use them in personnel decisions. If departments had the authority to identify problematic officers and intervene before a tragedy occurs, mayors and police chiefs would face greater democratic accountability for police misconduct. The killing of George Floyd and its aftermath should force policy makers and the public to reconsider whether it’s a good idea to combine police powers with a system of limited oversight and discipline. In our view, it isn’t," writes law professor and IPR associate Max Schanzenbach and Kyle Rozema.

Anti-hunger advocates are warning that children won’t have access to the food they need during the summer months unless the Trump administration loosens rules for school meal programs. Food insecurity doubled overall in the United States in April, tripling among households with children, according to a study by Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research director Diane Schanzenbach.

Whether it’s racial tensions, unrest, the coronavirus or economic hardships, many of us are likely feeling anxious, depressed, and isolated right now. Psychiatrist and IPR associate Crystal Clark, said the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and the resulting unrest around the country have increased calls about anxiety and depression. “I would say that my patients in particular have been complaining of more anxiety as it relates to the protests and the looting in relation to George Floyd’s death, and specifically my African-American patients and those of other providers I’ve talked to – this has been a sense of a boiling point for them, because they’ve been experiencing systemic discrimination for months, years, decades, centuries really," she said.

As the pandemic upends work and home life, women have carried an outsized share of the burden, more likely to lose a job and more likely to shoulder the load of closed schools and day care. Despite the miserable choices facing many working mothers, several economists retain hopes that the increased pressure on families could—over the long term—force structural and cultural changes that could benefit women: a better child care system; more flexible work arrangements; even a deeper appreciation of the sometimes overwhelming demands of managing a household with children by partners stranded at home for the first time. “We find that men who can work from home do about 50 percent more child care than men who cannot,” said Matthias Doepke, an economist and IPR associate who co-author of a recent study on the disproportionately negative effect of the coronavirus outbreak on women. “This may ultimately promote gender equality in the labor market.”

A 2019 study found that police officers who are are partnered with officers who garner complaints about excessive force are more likely to receive such complaints themselves in the future. Researchers examined more than 8,600 Chicago police officers named in multiple complaints between 2005 and 2017. The analysis found that the more officers with histories of excessive force were in a group, the higher the risk that other officers in that group would develop similar track records. According to IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos, one of the study's co-authors, this link could help predict potential bad behavior by officers and give departments better information about when and how to intervene before violent incidents occur.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the nation’s child care crisis, one that has kept parents — especially women — out of the U.S. workforce. Reset takes a closer look at the pandemic’s impact on mothers across the country and child care providers around Illinois, with IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach as a guest.

Two scientists at Northwestern University's have created the first dynamic global surveillance system to track COVID-19, according to a news release from the university. The system, which can identify outbreaks even before patients come to hospitals, was rolled out in 195 countries on Thursday. Existing surveillance, according to the news release, doesn’t identify significant shifts in the pandemic or sound the alarm when there is concerning acceleration of disease transmission signaling an outbreak. “We can inform leaders where the outbreak is occurring before it shows up in overcrowded hospitals and morgues,” said study leader and IPR associate Lori Post, in the news release. “Current systems are static and ours is dynamic.”

A Northwestern University-based research team has unveiled an online COVID-19 data dashboard that aims to show more quickly where infections are surging in states and across the world. The dashboard joins scores of others related to the pandemic that are hosted by governments, news media, nonprofits and universities. This one crunches the data in a new way that its creators say can flag surges faster and more precisely, before they become overwhelming. “Basically the whole idea for this is like an early warning system. What we would hope to do with this is to ... be able to see when things are starting to stoke and an outbreak is occurring,” said Lori Post, co-lead investigator and IPR associate.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, restaurants have faced some of the biggest challenges compared to many other industries. From constantly changing regulations that affected their bottom line, to investing in expensive HVAC equipment only to have their dining rooms closed, restaurant owners have attempted to convince both themselves and others that they’re not the problem. After all, they’ve been held to strict health, safety and sanitation regulations to simply operate, even before the pandemic set in. "The most common places of spread are where people tend to be in smaller group and stay for longer periods of time, which is why gyms and religious spaces where there is singing or interacting with others are also on the list," said IPR sociologist Beth Redbird.

Speaking out against issues of racism and injustice can easily fall on deaf ears if you’re leading a company that does not prioritize hiring, promoting and supporting black workers. In a study released IPR sociologist Lincoln Quillian and researchers at Harvard and the Institute for Social Research in Norway, it was discovered that anti-black racism is still an issue in the hiring process today with white applicants receiving 36% more callbacks for jobs than equally qualifying African Americans.

As companies like Twitter and Square shift toward making work from home permanent post-pandemic, workers will have to adapt to new forms of work and office life. For many, working remotely may be the preferred choice. But there are sacrifices that come with working remotely. While there hasn't yet been any finalized research on the topic, he noted, IPR economist Hannes Schwandt said he thinks remote work is better for more established workers than for "newbies." And all the other networking events outside the office that have been canceled are probably more important for newbies, too, he said. "Usually, socializing at conferences is a way the next generation gains ground, while the more established older cohorts are staying home," he said.

People on the front line are worried, and experts warn the outbreak has proved a “trust-destroying disaster” that could have devastating consequences. Social scientists at Northwestern University have surveyed 200 people a day since mid-March, and have found that unlike in other disasters, the US is not unifying in response to this crisis. “It has been a solidarity- and trust-destroying disaster,” said IPR sociologist Beth Redbird. “We usually see disasters as unifying. They bring us together, they unite us, they increase support for our neighbors, to help each other out. But while we see anecdotal stories of that in the press, we haven’t actually seen a lot of data supporting that that’s what’s going on.”

"Across the country, families are lining up at food pantries because they cannot afford to buy their own food. The lines stretch down city blocks and extend for miles down country roads. Hunger, it turns out, doesn’t have a geographic location or political affiliation. It would be unconscionable and heart-breaking to miss the opportunity to ease the suffering and spur economic growth in this next round of stimulus aid. Food banks across the country are overwhelmed by the growing need and are calling on Congress to increase SNAP benefits by 15 percent. This is not a crisis that charity alone can address," writes IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach.

Chicago’s black and brown communities have been utterly devastated by the loss of work amid the pandemic. Food insecurity has been a rapidly growing problem, as families run out of resources. “What we’ve learned is that 11% of Chicagoans have gone to a food pantry over the past week,” said IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach. “And it’s almost one out of every five families with children have had to turn to a food pantry.”

IPR sociologist Beth Redbird, has been surveying 200 people a day since mid-March, and “70 to 75 percent of people support most social-distancing measures,” she says. “Those are really large numbers in a society where 52 percent is often viewed as huge support. We rarely see that outside of authoritarian polling. Americans are by and large reading information in a very similar way.” Economic indicators support this view. Even in conservative states, activity plummeted before leaders closed businesses, and hasn’t rebounded since restrictions were lifted. As such, Redbird doesn’t share the widely held fear that Americans have become inured to social distancing and will refuse to suffer through it again. The bigger risk, she says, is that demoralizing bouts of shutdowns and reopenings will nix any prospect of economic recovery. “You only get to say Go out, trust me once,” she says. “They won’t believe you the second time.”

Young adults, especially those without a college degree, are particularly vulnerable in recessions. They are new to the job market — with scant on-the-job experience and little or no seniority to protect them from layoffs. Till von Wachter of the University of California, Los Angeles, and IPR economist Hannes Schwandt followed Americans who entered the labor market in 1981 and 1982, during the largest postwar recession up to that time. They not only earned less in midlife. They were also less likely to be married or to have children, and more likely to die young, recording higher mortality rates starting in their 30s — driven by heart disease, lung cancer, liver failure and drug overdoses — what two Princeton scholars, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, have called “deaths of despair.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) plans a nationwide study of up to 325,000 people to track how the new coronavirus is spreading across the country into next year and beyond, a CDC spokeswoman and researchers conducting the effort told Reuters. But the CDC study may not “generate results that are generalizable to the population,” IPR biological anthropologist Thomas McDade, said in an interview.

"Venom and victimization largely define the President’s public persona, and the same holds true for the online campaign. Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee in early March, and the covid-19 pandemic put a halt to barnstorming a few weeks later, but the rhetoric of Trump’s campaign has barely budged. On March 12th, as the coronavirus crisis was taking hold in the United States, it e-mailed its supporters a photograph of Trump, ruddy face fully made up, a flag pin in his lapel, sitting behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, looking steely. The e-mail said that there is “no room for partisanship, and the President is calling on both parties in Congress to unite," reports journalist and IPR associate Peter Slevin.

Watch for a population shift after the worst of the pandemic passes Illinois. Residents eager to leave the petri dish of the big city may leave for rural communities as more companies allow for remote work. Illinois, which has already seen population declines in recent years as birth rates and immigration have dipped, is likely to drop further post-Covid-19. “It’s just a matter of how much,” says IPR social demographer Christine Percheski, who studies demographics. She told Playbook the decline will be fueled by a combination of mortality rates rising, fertility rates falling and immigration grinding to a halt.

One-fifth of Americans say they have had trouble getting enough food to eat during the economic turmoil of the coronavirus pandemic, a nearly overnight doubling of food insecurity in the United States, according to a national poll released on Thursday. The extent of economic distress experienced by families requires an urgent and sustained response from the federal government,” concluded IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach and research analyst Abigail Pitts of Northwestern University in an analysis of food insecurity based on the first round of Covid Impact Survey data. They said food insecurity was “substantially larger than what would have been predicted, especially among families with children.”

"We’re in a full-blown “she-cession.” Women accounted for 55 percent of the 20.5 million jobs lost in April, with especially high unemployment rates for those ages 20–24 and over 50, as well as for women of color. Women are heavily represented in industries hardest hit by the virus, including travel, restaurants, and childcare, and they make up more than 60 percent of low-wage workers. They bear the brunt of childcare, homeschooling and housework, putting them further at a disadvantage. The “disproportionate negative effect” on women’s employment is “likely to be persistent,” and workers who lose jobs are “likely to have less secure employment in the future,” according to a new working paper from researchers at Northwestern University, the University of California San Diego and the University of Mannheim," writes Joanne Lipman.

An alert is expected to go out to doctors Thursday, regarding a mysterious illness that's affecting children who have previously had COVID-19. There are confirmed cases in Illinois. Dr. Craig Garfield, a pediatrician from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital and IPR associate, joined ABC 7 Chicago remotely to talk about the illness. "I think we're very early in; in no way, I think, is this going to affect many, many children," he said. He encouraged parents to reach out to their pediatricians with any questions about the illness.

Experts expect more business and personal bankruptcies as the economic crisis intensifies. IPR economist Matthew Notowidigdo says bankruptcy allows people to get a fresh start and back to their old path of spending. But bankruptcy costs money, so he warns that people may have to save up if they want to file for bankruptcy.

In 2008 a young economist named Craig Garthwaite went looking for sick people. He found them in the National Health Interview Survey. Conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau since 1957, the NHIS is the oldest and biggest continuing effort to track Americans’ health. Garthwaite matched NHIS respondents’ health conditions to the dates when their mothers were probably exposed to the flu. Mothers who got sick in the first months of pregnancy, he discovered, had babies who, 60 or 70 years later, were unusually likely to have diabetes; mothers afflicted at the end of pregnancy tended to bear children prone to kidney disease. The middle months were associated with heart disease.

Gen Z is in for a bumpy ride. The class of 2020 is graduating into a grim economy: The unemployment rate surged to 14.7% in April, a number not seen in nearly a century, since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Younger workers have been hit hardest in the coronavirus job market, which spells bad news for the Gen Zers seeking entry-level jobs. But IPR economist Hannes Schwandt, told Business Insider this delay in wealth accumulation isn't necessarily due to the lack of jobs that characterize a downturn. The problem is that recession graduates on average start at "lower quality" jobs.

Now that the Food and Drug Administration has authorized remdesivir for emergency use in seriously ill COVID-19 patients, the experimental drug is another step closer to full approval. That's when most drugs get price tags. Gilead Sciences, which makes remdesivir, is donating its initial supply of 1.5 million doses, but the company has signaled it will need to start charging for the drug to make production sustainable. It's unclear when that decision might be made. But there is such a thing as pricing remdesivir too low, said economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite. "We don't think this is the only drug we need," he said, adding that remdesivir doesn't appear to be a "home run" against the coronavirus, based on existing data.

New research shows a rise in food insecurity without modern precedent. Among mothers with young children, nearly one-fifth say their children are not getting enough to eat, according to a survey by the Brookings Institution, a rate three times as high as in 2008, during the worst of the Great Recession. During the Great Recession, Congress increased maximum benefits by about 14 percent and let states suspend work rules. Caseloads soared. “This is what you want a safety net to do — expand in times of crisis,” said IPR economist Diane Schanzenbach.

Words are failing us. Which is ironic, because as recently as just a few months ago, many of the words we now say and hear all day long, every day, over and over, we had never even heard. “It sounds like people trying to take control of their world, which is what happens in big moments,” said linguist and IPR associate Annette D’Onofrio. She studies how we use language in interaction and social identity, and been noticing “the way people who had no understanding of epidemiology are now talking about the definition of ‘pandemic,” much the way those “who didn’t know the definition of ‘fascism’ before the 2016 presidential election were all of a sudden discussing it with authority.”

Northwestern University researchers have put forth a coronavirus antibody test that they say can be completed using only a single drop of dried blood from a finger prick. The test, which is specifically designed to search for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies IgM and IgG, will help in “evaluating how effective policies such as social distancing or closing schools and restaurants are working to prevent viral transmission,” as well as eliminate the need for a clinical setting, according to the team’s lead author. Thomas McDade, a IPR biological anthropologist, said the test will also help in “ascertaining the true prevalence and mortality rate of infection.”

The joy of having a baby has changed under the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, and nowhere is that threat felt more deeply than in the NICU with at-risk infants. “It instantly is heart wrenching to think about parents in the midst of a pandemic and how do you have some semblance of understanding and bonding and attachment with that baby,” said Dr. Craig Garfield, who is an IPR associate. Doctor Garfield says his team worked around the clock to expand the use of an app that is now available for all NICU families at Prentice Women's Hospital. The smart “NICU to Home” app provides constant, detailed updates on the infants when parents cannot be by their side.

Even as the coronavirus pandemic draws attention and resources to the nation’s doctors and hospitals, the health-care industry is suffering a historic collapse in business that is emerging as one of the most powerful forces hurting the U.S. economy and a threat to a potential recovery. Guidelines for social distancing and infection control could mean less crowded waiting rooms — or the abolition of waiting rooms altogether. That makes the traditionally tight scheduling in doctors’ offices more difficult. “How efficient can you be in a world of social distancing?” said IPR associate and economist Craig Garthwaite.

Over three weeks ago, hydroxychloroquine was all the rage in MAGA world, despite flawed and scattered evidence about whether the drug could help cure coronavirus. Now there is another drug, remdesivir, with positive early scientific data. Much of MAGA world wants little to do with it. Remdesivir’s connection to a pharmaceutical company taps into suspicions on the right that corporate executives are trying to rake in huge profits from the coronavirus. Hydroxychloroquine, on the other hand, is already widely available in generic form. These factors were likely enough to turn off people who had been using hydroxychloroquine as a political rallying cry, said psychologist and IPR associate David Rapp, who studies how misinformation shapes beliefs and memory.

In a single month's time, once-secure jobs disappeared—and by the bucketful. Businesses shuttered. Spending fell off a cliff. "It's an environment of so much uncertainty that even if political leaders of either party tell us tomorrow to go back shopping, without the ability to know the probability of exposing yourself to some sort of risk, people are going to continue to avoid stores," says IPR sociologist Beth Redbird. Redbird conducts a daily nationwide survey of consumer attitudes regarding COVID-19. Early in March people were concerned about disruptions to their daily lives, "and they weren't really worried about getting sick," she says. "In the last five weeks that pattern has reversed."

Long before the novel coronavirus emerged, millions of older American workers were in real trouble. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic sledgehammer that is hitting business owners and their employees across the country poses a potentially lethal blow to these older workers. Congress has begun to address some of these realities through the first four rounds of COVID-19 relief legislation, but the overall legislative response is far too little and fails to address systemic problems," writes IPR faculty emeritus Fay Cook and Elaine Weiss.

What happens to families in the aftermath of school closings? For her forthcoming book, “Closed for Democracy,” urban politics professor Sally Afia Nuamah found that school closures tend to imbibe mostly black and Latino families with a sense of “mobilization fatigue”: They expend considerable political energy fighting to keep their schools open only to watch their elected officials cater to families who actually support closing schools.

According to a new study, even people who eventually land at the top of the socioeconomic ladder may not reap the same health benefits as those who were born there. Traditionally, researchers studying this phenomenon have looked at data at one point in time, but they have not tracked how health is impacted over a person's lifetime. A research group led by Gregory Miller, Ph.D., a health psychologist at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research, wanted to know what happens to the health of those whose socioeconomic status changes over time, known as "socioeconomic mobility."

"When water is limited, handwashing is also compromised. While current hydrologic data can be used to estimate the risk of water scarcity, they cannot pinpoint which households are actually experiencing issues with water. In an effort to develop a tool that could easily identify these individuals, our team of over 40 scientists recently collected the most comprehensive data on household water security to date. What we found is alarming: nearly one in four randomly selected households were unable to wash their hands in the prior month because of problems with water," write IPR anthropologist Sera Young and research coordinator Josh Miller.

Celeste Watkins-Hayes, IPR sociology and African American studies, said just as people with preexisting conditions are more likely to have negative outcomes with COVID-19, people experiencing preexisting stigmas are more likely to be deeply stigmatized in the age of COVID-19. To get ahead of coronavirus becoming stigmatized, Watkins-Hayes recommends that people tell their stories of testing positive for COVID-19 and getting through it. “It’s really easy to stigmatize when you have an abstract notion of the people most affected and you’re allowed to fill in the blanks of who you think they are and what their motivations might be,” she said.

COVID-19 has dramatically changed life in Hawaii. Relationships with family and partners have grown strained, frayed at the edges. “There’s been an increase in the frequency with which we fight with our partner and the increase of stress,” said Beth Redbird, an assistant professor at Northwestern University who’s studying social changes across the U.S. amid the coronavirus pandemic. Don’t expect a baby boom in nine months, Redbird said

One of the more horrific consequences of lockdown has been the rise in the number of domestic violence and abuse cases. Director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Dr. Lori Ann Post, talks about protecting victims of abuse during the coronavirus pandemic and the support that is available for anyone suffering from domestic violence.

Paycheck Protection loans give businesses approximately eight weeks’ worth of funds for payroll and other fixed expenses such as rent and utility payments. One issue that has arisen is an apparent loophole that allows hotel and restaurant chains to access money that is supposed to be aiding small businesses. Benjamin Jones, strategy professor at Kellogg School of Business and IPR associate and a former senior economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2010 to 2011, said the question of whether the aid money is being well targeted is crucial. "My sense is that it is quite poorly targeted. Well motivated but not well targeted," said Jones.

It's hard to know how the coronavirus pandemic will permanently alter the fabric of society. So far, 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the last month of social distancing. This week, Politics with Amy Walter looks at the impact the economic downturn caused by COVID-19 will have on a generation that was just starting to find their footing. IPR economist Hannes Schwandt shares how cohorts unlucky enough to join the workforce during a recession see a loss in lifetime earnings in addition to other less desirable life outcomes.

Geophysicist and IPR associate Seth Stein, professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Northwestern, joins the Roe Conn Show to explain how the COVID-19 pandemic, and the multiple stay-at-home orders contributes to the “quieting” of the Earth." Everything we do—particular things like driving cars, operating machines produces—very low amplitude seismic waves. The earth is sort of humming," Stein told WGN Radio. Seismic noise varies during the week and has slowed by about a third because of the decrease in human activity.

Having nearly half of the world’s children home from school means that many mothers are trying to teach, caretake and manage their workload simultaneously. This is a significant challenge for most families, and is positioning us for an interesting gender role reversal, one that might be unprecedented in this century. According to new research from economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke and Jane Olmstead-Rumsey of Northwestern University, Titan Alon of the University of California San Diego and Michèle Tertilt of the University of Mannheim, the COVID-19 crisis might generate change in gender norms that defines our new “normal” in the decades to come.

Pregnancy and childbirth are stressful enough, but they’re even more so when hospitals and doctor’s offices are flooded with coronavirus patients and people are trying to stay at home as much as possible. “Right now, with the data we have—which is not that much—we do not believe that pregnant people are at increased risk for COVID-19,” said Dr. Melissa Simon, an OB-GYN and the vice chair of research at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, where she also directs the Center for Health Equity Transformation. But she stresses that the same precautions we’re all taking are important—good hand hygiene, no face-touching, wearing a mask outside and physical distancing.

Facebook will soon let you know if you shared or interacted with dangerous coronavirus misinformation on the site, the latest in a string of aggressive efforts the social media giant is taking to contain an outbreak of viral falsehoods. A lot of users won’t get the new alert from Facebook, said media scholar and IPR associate Stephanie Edgerly, who researches audience engagement. She said many users might simply see a false claim in their Facebook feed but not share, like or comment on it.

Part of the problem, according to Claudia Haase, a psychologist and IPR associate and the director of the Life-Span Development Lab at Northwestern University, is that older adults may not experience the same level of threat as younger people do. “A massive body of scientific work has documented age-related shifts in the service of making negative emotions smaller and positive emotions bigger,” Haase says. “Older adults are often masters in turning their attention away from information that is threatening, upsetting and negative.”

"All states should shut down school meal sites and move to the electronic grocery voucher plan. Moving to electronic grocery vouchers will help protect the public health, because school meal sites themselves are hot spots for COVID-19 community spread. In at least 45 states, school districts have had to suspend or alter their meal distribution programs for breaks or because someone working at the program has tested positive for COVID-19. Because recipients will be able to redeem the benefits at regular grocery stores, families no longer have to worry daily about whether the district is going to run out of food or wonder what happens should a district shut meal distribution sites due to community spread," writes IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and the Hamilton Project's Lauren Bauer.

The coronavirus crisis imposes great stress on hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of students. Many have had to leave their campuses. Moreover, a fair amount of evidence suggests that, even under good conditions, online education does not offer the same quality of education that face-to-face classes do. IPR economist David Figlio and Mark Rush and Lu Yin of the University of Florida did an experiment where roughly 1,400 students were randomly assigned to either online or live lecture sections of a large introductory microeconomics class. Why subject them to years of lower earnings—a situation that could, in fact, persist for some time if they enter the market during bad economic conditions? IPR economist Hannes Schwandt and Till von Wachter studied the differential effects of initial economic conditions for labor market entrants in the United States from 1976 to 2015. They found persistent earnings and wage reductions, especially for less-advantaged entrants.

Economists said Americans looking for quick relief should look to unemployment insurance through states rather than relying on federal one-time payments. “Unemployment insurance through Illinois is going to be bigger payments. They’re going to come faster, and they’re going to last a lot longer than this IRS base payment,” said Benjamin Jones, strategy professor at Kellogg School of Business and IPR associate . “In Illinois, if you’re a green card holder or you’re a refugee status or if you come under DACA, you can get unemployment benefits.”

The great majority of people have concluded that changes in their behavior are essential. IPR sociologist Beth Redbird, who leads a research project that has been surveying Americans about the pandemic, says that in mid-March, most American were more worried about how the virus would disrupt their lifestyle than about contracting it. Since then, they have grown much less worried about disruptions and much more about getting sick. There is broad support, Redbird notes, not only for the government restrictions being taken but also for even more ambitious ones, such as requiring people to get a vaccine if and when it becomes available. From this survey, it’s hard to imagine most Americans going back to their old habits anytime soon.

Wesley Skogan, an emeritus professor of political science who has studied policing in Chicago, said the reorganization going forward should be crucial for top brass who need more cops at the drop of a hat when crime flares up.“Every superintendent I’ve known has wanted to put resources in the hands of the area deputies so that they can move them around from district to district within their jurisdiction, and so they can respond quickly,” said Skogan. “Here, (Beck) was pursuing a dream that several superintendents have dreamed, which was to try to decentralize this quickly responsive resource reallocation and push it down to the area level.”

Martin Gilens and political scientist and IPR associate Benjamin I. Page describe what they believe are the consequences of a Democratic Party dominated by the well off. They contend in the 2020 edition of their book, “Democracy in America? What Has Gone Wrong And What We Can Do About It,” that “wealthy individuals and organized interest groups — especially business corporations — have had much more political clout” in forging government policy, adding that “the general public has been virtually powerless.”

An increasing number of hospitals are banning or limiting visitations to nurseries specializing in the care of ill or premature newborns. At Northwestern Medicine's Prentice Women's Hospital, which now restricts NICU visits to only one parent, an app called Smart NICU2Home allows remote checkins on babies. Parents can receive updates throughout the day on their child's vital signs, including information around their breathing, weight, bowel movements and medications, and access mental health features such as stress-reducing techniques. "While it is hard for anyone to have a loved one in the hospital and not be able to visit, new parents are particularly traumatized, as they have been waiting months and months to become mothers and fathers," said pediatrics professor and IPR associate Craig Garfield.

On April 1, the Chicago Police Department announced that the city experienced a 10 percent decrease in overall crime in March, compared to the same month last year. “The COVID-19 is not a cure for Chicago violence,” IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos said. He says that while useful, week-to-week or year-to-year comparisons of crime trends risk being overly simplistic and need to be placed in context. “Crime and violence never goes up or down in a straight line,” he said. “There are all sorts of short-term impacts.”

Globally, more than 1.3 billion children are out of school because of the coronavirus pandemic. Parents are frazzled. Children are antsy. And the whole thing is proving a major shock to society. Four economists have a hypothesis for how this shock could play out on a massive scale. In a new research paper, economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke and Jane Olmstead-Rumsey of Northwestern University, Titan Alon of the University of California San Diego and Michèle Tertilt of the University of Mannheim predict two big outcomes for gender equality. Over the short run, they predict, working moms will shoulder a higher burden than dads when it comes to providing childcare in the pandemic. Millions of dads have suddenly been forced to stay home with their kids. This historic moment could forever shift dynamics in both firms and families, leading to greater gender equality down the road.

"Research provides clues about which relationships are at risk from the outbreak—and which may benefit. For couples whose strengths involve a cherished routine of dinner dates or a commitment to the goal of working out together at the gym, the coming weeks (or months) are likely to be a struggle. The key is to recalibrate expectations of what the relationship can realistically provide under the circumstances. By lowering unrealistic expectations, couples can keep difficulties from growing into a full-blown relationship crisis. But by holding onto certain important expectations—rather than expecting nothing at all—couples can use the forced isolation together to play to their strengths, perhaps even growing closer," writes psychologist and IPR associate Eli Finkel.

Schools are a trusted hub for low-income residents in need of essential services such as day care, meals, and referrals to medical, dental and mental health services, said IPR developmental psychologist Terri Sabol. “Low-income families are hit especially hard during economic downturns, and these increased hardships cause stress that can have a negative impact on parenting, which has a trickle-down effect on kids,” Sabol said. Though students participating in remote learning from home can be challenging for many families, for the economically disadvantaged, the abrupt closure of schools can prove catastrophic.

President Trump and congressional Republicans spent the last three years fighting to cut anti-poverty programs and expand work rules, so their support for emergency relief — especially in the form of directly sending people checks, usually a nonstarter in American politics — is a significant reversal of their effort to shrink the safety net. IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach of Northwestern University and Hilary W. Hoynes of Berkeley found in 2018 that nearly all the growth in federal spending since 1990 has “gone to families with earnings, and to families with income above the poverty line.” They warned the imbalance “is likely to lead to worse outcomes” for the poorest children.

There is growing concern in the education world that a severe staff shortage at the National Center for Education Statistics will force the agency to cut back on the collection and dissemination of vital data that the public, legislators and policymakers use to make decisions. “I’m very concerned that this is something that has the potential to erode the quality of the education system,” said Larry Hedges, a world-renowned applied statistician who is chairman of Northwestern University’s Department of Statistics. He won the $3.9 million global Yidan Prize for Education Research in 2018.

This year, as a pandemic cripples the economy, these inequities will come into sharp focus, as many women confront the coronavirus on the front lines or lose their jobs because of the economic downturn. The crisis may also make the inequities worse — at least in the short term, according to a new paper examining the impact of the virus on the economy by researchers at Northwestern University, including economist and IPR associate Matthias Doepke the University of Mannheim in Germany and the University of California, San Diego. “The Covid-19 pandemic will have a disproportionate negative effect on women and their employment opportunities,” the authors write.

Northwestern Medicine’s Prentice Women’s Hospital is helping families virtually visit newborn babies in the NICU during the coronavirus pandemic. There’s a smartphone app that all NICU parents can use to check in on their babies from home. The app, called SMART NICU2HOME, sends updates throughout the day on their baby’s vital signs, as well as personalized information and education. It also reveals who is caring for their baby at any given point. “They aren’t at the bedside, but they can still get that vital information every parent craves, and it helps fill the gap since family and friends used to be able to visit in person,” said Dr. Craig Garfield, professor of pediatrics and medical social sciences and IPR associate.

"I'm not technically unemployed, but my hours have been cut to zero. Can I still apply for unemployment benefits? I just lost my job and my health insurance. Can I apply for Medicaid? These are among the questions that workers whose livelihoods have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic are asking. As the pandemic reverberates throughout the U.S. economy, many more will be asking the same questions. In light of the $2 trillion economic rescue plan, now is the time for policymakers to break down the barriers to accessing critically needed safety net programs," writes IPR economist Matthew Notowidigdo.

Financial strain and the mental and physical health issues it causes can last decades after a recession has ended. In the short term, mortality may decline because people are driving less or eating healthier, but “those factors are gone once the recession is gone because they are specific to the moment,” UCLA economist Till von Wachter said about a study he co-authored with IPR economist Hannes Schwandt. “Then, long-term factors take over.” Data shows that people who are negatively affected by a recession, including people who graduate into an economic downturn or lose their job as a result, tend to die earlier than they would have otherwise.

"Considering impacts on the health care system is obviously important. Nevertheless, it is difficult to understand how the response team can justify drawing policy conclusions based only on the effects on health care. From the beginning of the pandemic onward, the public has sought to learn the broad impacts of policy on social welfare, which minimally requires joint consideration of health care and the economy," writes IPR economist Charles F. Manski.

Meredith lives in Oregon, and I offer her story as just one example of what’s happening all over the country: women having babies, or preparing to, during a time of coronavirus siege and economic convulsions. “Birthing moms are really left behind in this conversation,” said Melissa Simon, an obstetrician/gynecologist and IPR associate. “They’re the only ones who are healthy who have to come to the hospital. It makes the stress level go up.”

Usually, jobless benefits replace just a portion of a worker’s lost wages, but the debate over how that changes people’s behavior flares up pretty much every time government benefits are extended or made more generous, according to IPR economist Matthew Notowidigdo. “The concern is that it’s going to lead people to stay unemployed longer,” he said. It’s a basic principle of economics: The more you subsidize a behavior, the more people do it. And Notowidigdo said there’s pretty solid evidence from countries all over the world that does happen. The longer benefits are available, the longer, on average, people will take to find a job.

Ronald Reagan was running for president during the Iran hostage crisis, he deliberately avoided becoming Jimmy Carter’s harshest critic, as IPR sociologist Monica Prasad has noted. ... “This is a dangerous moment for Joe Biden,” Prasad wrote in Politico. Perhaps the best thing Biden could do is avoid saying something that would make him appear petty or open himself up to criticism, she added: “Biden similarly needs to let the president lead. If Trump is the ineffective and irresponsible caricature that his opponents think he is, events will show it soon enough.”

For an assessment of the package, we turned to Benjamin Jones, strategy professor at Kellogg School of Business and IPR associate who served from 2010 to 2011 as a senior economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers and, prior to that, at the U.S. Treasury. "First of all, it is going to help workers who have lost their jobs through both surging unemployment insurance but also by extending unemployment-type insurance and support to gig workers or self-employed workers who don’t normally qualify for state-level unemployment insurance," he explained.

Chicago’s gun violence has slowed as the city battles COVID-19 and residents practice social distancing and isolation. The city has had only one homicide in the last seven days. Chicago has not had a one-homicide week in more than five years, according to a WBEZ analysis of data from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. “The coronavirus crisis is reducing people’s exposure to risk, keeping them inside, keeping them out of risky places, keeping them out of bars and restaurants,” said IPR faculty emeritus Wesley G. Skogan.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in the past several days could offer what one behavioral health expert called a “fascinating” hint of the possible numbers. In the nationwide poll, 2.3% of Americans surveyed said they’ve been diagnosed with the coronavirus, a percentage that could translate to several million people. IPR economist Charles Manski said he was gratified to see that older Americans may have less exposure to infected people than other age groups. The disease poses a particular risk for the elderly. He said older people tend to have smaller social circles, which might explain part of the results, but he also thinks older Americans are being more careful than their younger counterparts.

Many people spend their nights now tossing and turning, struggling to unglue from the constant scroll of coronavirus news updates. But, while there is no body or life hack to make you impervious to the touch of disease, we do know that sleep is key to helping our bodies stay healthy. “It may be tempting to stay up late binge-watching your favorite shows because you don’t have to go to work in the morning, but it is more important than ever to prioritize your sleep,” said Kristen L. Knutson, an IPR associate at Northwestern University’s Center for Sleep and Circadian Medicine.

"Crises make or break presidents, and they also make or break presidential campaigns. As the nation watches President Donald Trump and state governors work their way through this crisis, former Vice President Joe Biden has lost the spotlight. ... Biden doesn’t have to go into hiding, but neither does he have to become the chief critic of Trump. The time for that will come later. How he handles these issues—whether he brings creativity and experience to carve out a positive role for himself in this unprecedented situation — will be the first major test of Joseph Biden’s presidency, the one that will determine whether there is a Biden presidency," writes Monica Prasad.

We can use SNAP, formerly known as the food stamp program, to help the most vulnerable households, as detailed by Brookings Institution fellow Lauren Bauer and Northwestern University’s Diane Schanzenbach. First, it is important to remove any work requirements until the economy has truly healed. Second, increasing the value of SNAP benefits for all participants – and even more so for families with children – is a simple mechanism for targeting cash-like resources to low-income families and is critical to insuring against hunger.

Hospitals across the country are limiting visitors and the number of people who can be in a room with a pregnant woman while she gives birth. Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, also confirmed that it switched from allowing four visitors per expecting patient to just one. “Almost all hospitals, to my knowledge, have either restricted visitations to one or no visitors," IPR associate Melissa Simon, an OB-GYN and vice chair of clinical research at Northwestern, told TODAY. "We only allow one visitor, and they can’t be switched."

Look around and you can see the economic damage caused by this public health crisis. We’ve been hearing from people who’ve lost their jobs and business owners who’ve had to let them go. What happens when we get through this? Some demand will come back when this is all over. For instance, people who put on hold buying a needed dishwasher or replacing worn-out shoes. But that doesn’t work for everything. “Do we go out to restaurants or bars three times as often when this is over?” asked strategy professor and IPR associate Ben Jones. The short answer: No. “You can defer the TV, the couch, the home repair, the car, but a lot of the demand that’s lost on the service side is lost permanently,” he said.

Not only is it safe to eat takeout during the coronavirus pandemic: It’s patriotic. “Help save America,” Lori Ann Post, director of Northwestern University’s Institute for Public Health and Medicine and IPR associate, says when asked what she would tell people who are reluctant to order food during the current crisis. By calling in an order, “You’ll save the economy ... you’ll have really tasty food.”

Medical disparities researcher and IPR associate Michelle Birkett co-wrote a blog in Scientific American calling on the government to "empowering science advisors to influence and direct the course of action taken by leaders and policymakers at the local and federal level. This may include establishing and empowering task forces for state and federal legislators. These task forces would be composed of scientists, medical professionals, business leaders, foundations, technologists and community leaders who would come together and help decision makers tackle near-term and long-term challenges associated with COVID-19."

Is the modern Republican Party built on race prejudice, otherwise known as racism? IPR political scientist Chloe Thurston and the author of “Black Lives Matter, American political development, and the politics of visibility,” wrote that: racism, very loosely defined, is an ideology whereby racial groups are organized according to a hierarchy, and members of these groups are often thought to have immutable traits based on their group membership.

When you are in a crisis, you need to model resilience and empathy. We will all be remembered for how we handled adversity, and sought to protect others. ... We live in an age of polarization. Hate thine enemy seems to be the catchphrase of the day. Righteous indignation abounds. It is a world where people speak over each other, screaming louder and louder, but it isn’t clear that anybody is listening. And in higher education, outrage all too often dominates civility. Sometimes it takes a crisis to remind you of the basic goodness of humanity," writes Northwestern president and IPR economist Morton Schapiro.

Elementary and secondary schools in Illinois are closed through at least March 30 to slow the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. IPR development psychologist Terri Sabol’s advice to caregivers during this period: make a daily schedule with their children. “Every morning have sort of a morning meeting and say, ‘OK so what’s our schedule going to look like today,” she said. “And then breaking up the day into chunks in ways that are sort of aligned with what kids would be doing in school (at that time) anyway.” Sabol said the schedule provides a routine for children and can make sure caregivers get a break, too.

Health disparities scholar and IPR associate Melissa Simon, an OB-GYN at Northwestern Medicine, says even though very little is known about what happens during pregnancy amid coronavirus, the real issue is about contact. “After you give birth, the baby usually gets put on the mom’s chest and near the mom’s face, and that’s really where the transmission would happen,” said Simon. “So right now, it’s the contact that we need to take precaution with after birth, or during breastfeeding as well.”

"People are starting to practice not only social distancing but also economic distancing, which leaves a lot of people — especially the most economically vulnerable — in the lurch. It’s easy to feel powerless watching the human toll mount. What can we do to make a difference when we’re stuck at home, disconnected both socially and economically? First, if your own income is secure, you can redirect funds you would have been spending on commuting, movies or restaurants to those who don’t have the privilege of a steady paycheck or stable housing," writes development economist and IPR associate Dean Karlan and Susan Athey of Stanford University.

Management and organizations professor and IPR associate Lauren Rivera details the challenges that students face at top business schools in her book "Pedigree." First-year students who are thrust into the hustle and bustle of management studies, quickly realize that the prestigious banking and consulting jobs are competitive and in short supply. Students pursuing these high-paying jobs are expected to have relevant work experience, participate in extracurriculars, network with industry professionals, all while maintaining competitive grades.

After a weekend in which, by one count, 26 Chicagoans were shot, some on social media began comparing the number of people shot and killed in Chicago to the number of Americans who have died from COVID-19. Among them was Fox News host Sean Hannity, who did not respond to a request for comment. Behavioral scientist and IPR associate Linda Teplin, who has studied the risk of contracting AIDS and the risk of being a victim of violent crime, said given how little is known about COVID-19, and how bad it might get, an accurate picture of the risk associated with coronavirus is virtually impossible to paint. “It’s apples and oranges, that’s why I think it’s not an apt comparison," she said.

Sociologist and IPR associate Hector Carrillo reminded me in a call that “the invention of safe sex and the emphasis on condom use was seen as an alternative to more draconian measures like asking gay men to stop having sex or closing the gay bars.” Such prevention campaigns, Carrillo said, “helped gay men change their attitudes and in turn their behaviors.” Does he see parallels to the current epidemic? “Yes,” he said, “we’re seeing an initial emphasis on the need to alter interactions like shaking hands, casual kissing and embracing. We’re being asked to alter them fairly rapidly and immediately to reduce the possibilities of transmission.”

In the absence of government leaders offering concrete plans, we need experts from outside the government right now more than ever. And we need them to be loud and definitive. We need them to bat down misinformation and to be brave enough to speak up with bold pronouncements. ... Even here, policy experts are stepping up. At the Brookings Institution, Lauren Bauer and Diane Schanzenbach offer comprehensive suggestions for stimulus to increase food security in response to the virus.

Cost sharing is a blanket term for things like deductibles, co-payments and co-insurance. If patients are spending money “out-of-pocket” — their own money — they might think harder about whether care is worth it. Healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite, says the biggest problem is that we don’t discuss often enough what we’re trying to accomplish: “There are two main reasons to consider cost sharing to be efficient. First, we might dissuade excess use of care, and second we might move people across products to more cost-effective options. Otherwise, we are just decreasing the benefits of insurance.”

In their study released last month, Michael Mauskapf of Columbia Business School, Noah Askin of INSEAD, Sharon Koppman of UC Irvine and Management and strategy professor and IPR associate Brian Uzzi examined “structural and cultural differences in the work context of creative producers” — an angle they considered to be widely unexplored. At first, Mauskapf, Askin, Koppman and Uzzi’s data, which pulled from a bank of 250,000 songs produced and released between 1955 and 2000, showed no noteworthy difference between men and women when it came to the output of creative work. When the gender composition of genres and the size of an artist’s network of collaborators were taken into consideration, though, the scholars found that female artists actually create more novel songs — works that are more musically fresh and unusual — than male artists.

Education researchers are trying to come up with different ways to measure success. One of them, IPR labor economist Kirabo Jackson, has zeroed in on soft skills, which include traits like empathy and perseverance, and found that if you were to set up a competition between schools that raise test scores and schools that foster soft skills, the soft skills schools would win. In a large study of more than 150,000 students in all 133 of Chicago’s public high schools, Jackson has calculated that schools that build social-emotional qualities such as the ability to resolve conflicts and the motivation to work hard are getting even better short-term and long-term results for students than schools that only boost test scores.

White parents aware of racial bias are more likely to talk with their kids about race, according to a Northwestern University study. Psychologist and IPR associate Sylvia Perry discussed her research, child development, the power of social cues and more emerging science on racial bias. “If parents don’t have an explicit conversation with their children about race and racial bias in the world, children start to figure out that information on their own. They look around to their peers and how they’re perceiving others to make sense of who is favored and who is not favored," said Perry.

"When it comes to public opinion, our survey does find some cause for concern. Many Ukrainians are uneasy about how the proceedings may hurt negotiations with Russia, Ukraine’s national security and relations with the United States. But the bigger takeaways are that impeachment wasn’t central to Ukraine’s news cycle, and Ukrainians haven’t lost faith in either Zelensky as an anti-corruption reformer or the United States as a role model for the rule of law and democracy," political scientist and IPR associate Jordan Gans Morse and his co-authors Tymofii Brik and Aaron Erlich write about the results of an online survey of Ukrainian citizens they conducted.

"Effective policing in a democratic society should balance the (sometimes) conflicting objectives of public safety and community trust. Stop-and-frisk methods may reduce crime, but the costs of intrusion on the rights and privacy of innocent people cannot be overlooked. It is not easy to weigh these costs and benefits, and it is even harder to achieve political consensus, but we have to appreciate the subtlety of the matter rather than succumb to sloganeering," write IPR economist Charles F. Manski and Daniel S. Nagin of Carnegie Mellon University.

In the United States, most of that campaign money ultimately went toward funding the ambitions of oligarchy. As political scientists Martin Gilens and political scientist and IPR associate Benjamin Page found in a 2014 paper, the economic elite dominate U.S. political life. Those with the means to spend their way to policy and law get the outcomes they want. Sometimes, average Americans do, too. But when the two clash, the outcome is exactly what you’d expect in a country in which money governs — and that makes the model used by a country such as Canada, with laws in place to constrain at least some of these impulses, look all the better.

Expanding the Supreme Court, an increasingly popular reform among some progressive activists, is not politically costly for Democrats according to a new study. The study documented reactions to the idea among 2,400 Democrats, Republicans and independents from the political swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It was conducted by political scientist Aaron Belkin from San Francisco State University and IPR political scientist James Druckman.

The United States has a problem: The share of American adults who work is low, compared to other developed nations. Economists say this holds the nation back—the economy and wages should grow faster when more people are working. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell told senators to blame the education system and the opioids epidemic, not welfare. A 2018 analysis by economists Hilary Hoynes of University of California at Berkeley and IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach found that “virtually all gains in spending on the social safety net for children since 1990 have gone to families with earnings, and to families with income above the poverty line.”

The new disease caused by the coronavirus outbreak that began in Wuhan, China, in December now has an official name: Covid-19. “There’s so much other information being said about Covid-19, and a lot of it is very scary and inflammatory,” said IPR anthropologist Rebecca Seligman. “I think people are going to take it seriously even when it has a name like that, and I think having a name that’s really neutral can actually help temper some of the overreacting that people might be doing.”

Youth suicide rates are dropping in the U.S., but the proportion of teens who have suicidal thoughts or make an attempt remains consistently higher among sexual minorities than among heterosexual young people, two new studies in Pediatrics suggest. “Numerous studies going back to the late 1990s have consistently shown that sexual minority youth are about three times more likely to report making a suicide attempt,” said Brian Mustanski, co-author of an editorial accompanying both studies, and director of the Northwestern Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing in Chicago and IPR associate.

Suicidal behavior is declining among U.S. teenagers who identify as LGBT, but the problem remains pervasive. Efforts to combat bullying could be part of the solution, according to director of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing and IPR associate Brian Mustanski. "But," he said, "I don't think that would be enough to eliminate the disparities in suicidal ideation and behavior." School suicide-prevention programs may also need to address the specific issues that LGBT kids face, Mustanski said.

Psychologist and IPR associate Eli Finkel has argued that since the 1960s, the dominant family culture has been the “self-expressive marriage.” “Americans,” he has written, “now look to marriage increasingly for self-discovery, self-esteem and personal growth.”

Obese teens who diet to lose weight may have more success if they also focus on getting enough rest, a small study suggests. “One way to improve the sleep of teens is to avoid bright light at night, particularly right before bedtime,” Neurologist and IPR associate Kristen Knutson said by email. “This includes light from smart phones and tablets - although getting teens to put these away at night may be challenging.”

Private companies have their work cut out for them with Goldman Sachs’s new ruling that will require companies to have a female board member if they want to IPO with the firm. In the 2019 Study of Gender Diversity in Private Company Boardrooms, which Crunchbase coauthored with Him For Her and the Kellogg School of Management's IPR associate Lauren Rivera, of the 200 highly funded private companies studied, only 7% of board seats were held by women. Sixty percent of the companies had no female board members at all.

New research by IPR economist Hannes Schwandt and Till von Wachter of the University of California, Los Angeles suggests that economic downturns can have other long-lasting effects. Using data on the roughly 4m Americans who entered the workforce shortly before, during and after the 1982 recession—when unemployment reached almost 11%—the authors measured how the downturn affected those people’s health and mortality many years later.

IPR faculty emeritus of political science Wesley Skogan, who has studied policing in Chicago, called the reassignment of specialized officers and detectives to the supervision of area and district patrol bosses a “radical decentralization” and said the restructuring marks the most significant one since the department began its community policing strategy in the 1990s. The plan “takes a risk that area deputy chiefs and the district commanders are capable of managing all these new resources,” he said. “And we’ll see if they can do it.”

While discrimination in the housing market has declined sharply in the past four decades, one area where a wide gap between the races perpetually hangs open is in mortgage lending, according to a new study by Northwestern University researchers. It’s long been known that black homebuyers in particular more often see their mortgage applications denied and pay higher loan costs than white buyers. The surprise, said the study’s lead author, IPR sociologist Lincoln Quillian, is that “the disparity has gone down only a little bit” in three decades.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon told CNBC that the investment bank wouldn’t take companies public unless the company had at least one “diverse” board member. Although he didn’t define exactly what he meant by diverse, he said the focus was on women. IPR psychologist Alice Eagly, an expert on female leaders, delved into the academic research on the impact of adding women to corporate boards. She found when you removed all of the confounding variables, diversity had no effect on profitability.

In one experiment, half of 120 Ugandan villages were paid about $28 per year for every hectare of forest they protected. After two years, 4 percent of the forest had been lost to clear cutting in the villages that were paid. In the villages that were not paid, more than twice as much forest was lost. Considering the cost of carbon emissions, the benefits of the Uganda program far outweighed the expense, said IPR economist Seema Jayachandran, the study’s author. “If you can get people to do it, it is a net win for carbon sequestration,” she said.

The wide variation in prices didn’t surprise professor of strategy and IPR associate Amanda Starc. What you’ll pay generally depends on the deal your insurance company negotiated, she said. But there is a group of consumers for whom the numbers may have more meaning: those without insurance. Without an insurance company to negotiate, consumers can end up with a bill for the amount shown in the chargemaster, Starc said.

Professor of finance and IPR associate Janice Eberly noted that while the U.S. government spends more dollars today on the military and domestic programs than it did in the 1960s, federal investment as a share of GDP is at an all-time low, which is probably hurting productivity and growth.

In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, management and strategy professor and IPR associate Brian Uzzi presents a method to predict which incipient terror organizations are likely to turn dangerously lethal by conceptualizing them as business startups. Business analysts have developed tools to evaluate startups and try to predict their future returns. Usually, analysts look at a company’s balance sheet, evaluating the startup’s capabilities and resources. Businesses with a lot of resources plan the deployment of those resources carefully. The converse is also true: Businesses that deploy their products in a haphazard manner typically have unstable resources.

In some senses, psychologist and IPR associate Eli Finkel said, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are a perfect example of an ideal modern marriage, in that one partner has sacrificed a great deal to prioritize the other’s ability to live the way she wants. “This is a story about either the norms surrounding British royalty or the tabloid media trying to force [Meghan Markle] to be somebody other than who she is. My understanding is that both of them feel like that’s not an acceptable ask,” he said.

Health disparities scholar and IPR associate Melissa Simon says that the numbers in the study are high, but not surprising. "It's really hard for health care providers to unlearn things that they've been doing for years, let alone decades," she says. Simon explains that the guidelines for pelvic exams might be hard to keep up with, because different professional associations and governmental agencies have each changed their guidelines at different times in recent years, and with slight variations.

Economists puzzle over what has been dragging the natural rate down, and have formulated two explanations. The first is that labour forces in developed economies are growing older. The second is that productivity is not growing as quickly as it used to. “Monetary policy doesn’t save us from demographics,” said economist and IPR associate Janice Eberly.

Although guidelines say most women under age 21 don’t need pelvic exams or cervical cancer screenings, a U.S. study suggests many still get these invasive tests. “In the absence of any symptoms or other diseases such as being immunocompromised - like having HIV, AIDS or cancer) - a pap test is not needed prior to age 21,” health disparities scholar and IPR associate Simon said. “Also, a pelvic exam is not needed,” Simon added. “And, neither a pelvic exam nor a pap test is needed in order to obtain contraception, except in the case (of) an IUD.”

Another new study finds that recessions leave lasting effects not only on early career outcomes, but on health well into middle age. The working paper, by IPR economist Hannes Schwandt and Till von Wachter of the University of California at Los Angeles, looked at the cohorts that graduated into lousy labor markets in the early 1980s, when the country experienced painful double-dip recessions. The authors found that these cohorts have been dying younger than counterparts who graduated during better economic conditions.

After voters and multiple news organizations put a spotlight on the often shocking costs of medical care, lawmakers vowed that they'd address "surprise" medical bills in legislation last year. "Can anything move forward on either surprise billing reforms or the common concepts across the Senate and House on pharmaceutical pricing and insurance?" said healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite. "If those initiatives can’t gain traction, I’m not sure why we’re debating Medicare for All."

Researchers from Stanford, Northwestern, and Yale universities examined 44 school shootings across the country – 15 of which included at least one fatality – and found local exposure to a fatal event increased antidepressant use among people under age 20. “There’s a clear, strong timing of this mental health response to the shooting,” said study co-author IPR economist Hannes Schwandt.

Miriam Menkin’s achievement would usher in a new era of reproductive technology – one in which infertile women became pregnant, children were conceived in tubes, and scientists peered into the earliest stages of life. “I think she can be really thought of as co-equal with John Rock,” oncofertility specialist and IPR associate Teresa Woodruff says. “Not just a technician or a pair of hands, as people have argued, but actually the intellectual person doing the work.”

“The average boycott isn’t changing behaviors,” said Kellogg professor of management and organizations and IPR associate Brayden King, “but they’re creating a negative spotlight on the company and that creates a reputational threat.” He notes that they can succeed even if they don’t actually change anyone’s behavior.

Meager’s work correctly suggests we should focus more on syntheses of studies than specific individual studies, and this is one of the best of the latter camp I saw this decade. In this review, IPR economist Kirabo Jackson walks through 13 recent papers, many coauthored by Jackson himself, that use highly rigorous near-random methods to measure the influence of money on school outcomes.

This first-ever effort to measure the mental health consequences of school shootings in the U.S. was reported Monday in a working paper by IPR economists Molly Schnell and Hannes Schwandt published by the National Bureau for Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass. School shootings reached an all-time high of 17 in 2018, and as the number of incidents has mounted, so too has the number of students directly affected by them.

For consumer brands and companies in 2019, the internet has laid bare two bewildering realities: It’s nearly impossible to stay out of politics. And when there is even a hint of political controversy, the outrage machine will spin itself into high gear. Once you get validation online, says professor of management and organizations and IPR associate Brayden King, who has studied consumer boycotts, “it’s very easy to stop.”

Illinois has one of the highest numbers of guns recovered from kids 17 and under, according to new data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives, nearly 600 in 2018. Behavior scientist and IPR associate Linda Teplin new findings show three-quarters of the children she studied reported having easy access to firearms. Only 15% were around guns in the home.

IPR sociologist and African American studies researcher Celeste Watkins-Hayes and Victoria Noe were strangers to one another, each hundreds of miles from home, when they found themselves at neighboring booths at September’s U.S. Conference on AIDS in Washington, D.C. At a time when AIDS has fallen off many people’s radar, Noe and Watkins-Hayes are fighting to keep the epidemic in the national dialogue.

A rigorous evaluation by IPR economist Kirabo Jackson found that the NMSI programme increases college attendance by 4.2 percentage points while increasing college readiness and longer-term labour force outcomes. Some subgroup effects were jaw-dropping. Hispanic students experienced an 11% gain in earnings when exposed to the NMSI incentive programme.

In an academic paper on love and marriage published in 2014, social psychologist and IPR associate Eli Finkel and his co-authors argued that since 1965 American marriages have formed around the ideal of “expressive individualism,” which centers on the creation of individual identity and the charting of a path of personal growth. In sum, marriage is now one of several avenues to becoming “your best self.”

“Whether we're talking about people of color, sexual minorities, low-income folks, transgender individuals, we know that people who are at the quote unquote, 'bottom' of society's ladder are often at highest risk for contracting an illness like HIV," IPR sociologist and African American studies researcher Celeste Watkins-Hayes said.

The negative impact of graduating during a recession aren’t necessarily limited to economic opportunity either. According to a recent study for the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research, it can also have long-term consequences on one’s emotional and physical well-being. “Recession graduates are more likely to divorce, less likely to be married and less likely to be cohabitating with their children,” says IPR economist Hannes Schwandt.

IPR economist Seema Jayachandran writes in a New York Times column about how disappointing results led her grad advisors, this year’s Nobel winners of the Nobel for in economics, to pioneer the use of field experiments in development economics, which influenced her own research.

While awareness about misinformation on social media has increased in recent years, many people are still confused about how they can get reliable news, said media scholar and IPR associate Stephanie Edgerly, who researches changing media landscapes. "It's really dangerous to make people aware, concerned and afraid, but not pair that with strategies to engage," Edgerly said.

"The biggest obstacle to putting women in office may not be that voters are afraid of female candidates, but that people have convinced themselves others are afraid. This could become a self-fulfilling prophecy," co-writes IPR political scientist Mary MaGrath.

Most of our public discourse about racism — when it’s not about violence or monuments or presidential rhetoric — is about white privilege, implicit bias and structural racism. Instead of specific actors, we tend to focus on forces that don’t actually implicate anyone in particular. Those forces are real. And those conversations are important. Racial inequality is about the structure of our society. But it’s also about more ordinary bias and discrimination. A 2017 meta-analysis of field experiments on racial discrimination in hiring by IPR sociologist Lincoln Quillian found that for black Americans, discrimination has been static—there has been no change since 1989.

"The research is clear. Discrimination against LGBTQ+ people greatly harms their physical and mental health, with LGBTQ+ children and adolescents especially vulnerable to harm," co-writes professor of medical social sciences and IPR associate Brian Mustanski

"By 2005 or so, Chicago had easily the most impressive community policing program in the country," IPR faculty emeritus Wesley Skogan said about his research on community policing in Chicago. He said that by 2014, the program became "a shadow of its former self."

"Our work suggests that when making voting decisions, people assess their economic position relative to members of their own communities rather than to folks in the whole country," co-writes political scientist and IPR associate Thomas Ogorzalek.

Chicago’s gun violence epidemic is tragic, but not random. IPR sociologist Andrew Papachristos explains how the connected nature of cities and science can predict the next likely shooting victim.

"'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.' And also, give me your DNA," writes professor of pediatrics and IPR associate Sara Katsanis.

"The evidence is clear that, over the past twenty years, partisan emotions have splintered such that people feel more attached to their party and more animus toward the other party," IPR political scientist James D