Social Welfare, Poverty, and Income Security
Thomas Dennison directs the multidisciplinary Health Services Management and Policy (HSMP) program, a master’s level program that grants an advanced certificate of study and provides training in a multi-professional classroom setting where students in public administration, business administration, law, social work, and medicine jointly address pressing issues in health care delivery, financing, and public health. Students from the College of Law, the School of Management, and the College of Human Ecology have all participated in this program. Linkages between this program, the CPR research program, and the Lourie Lecture have been established and continue to expand. The program also maintains links with the local health care delivery system to permit students to learn in a living laboratory through the Commission for a Healthy Central New York, a collaborative community planning agency sponsored by Upstate Medical University, the Onondaga County Department of Health and Syracuse University, which Dennison chairs. Dennison is Associate Director of CNYMPH, a Masters in Public Health that is jointly sponsored as a collaborative degree between Syracuse University and Upstate Medical University.
Gary Engelhardt conducts research on the economics of aging, household saving, employer-provided pensions, Social Security, taxation, and housing markets. He is currently studying the impact of pensions, Social Security, and Medicare on the retirement saving and income security of older Americans. In addition to this work, he is evaluating the impact of housing and saving policies targeted to low-income households and the impact of population aging on housing markets.
Madonna Harrington Meyer is now conducting interviews for a new project on grandmothers who work and mind grandchildren.
Andrew London conducts research in demography, medical sociology, aging and the life course, HIV/AIDS, welfare reform, and carework. With Janet M. Wilmoth and other researchers at the Center for Policy Research, London has continued to work on a series of papers that address the effects of military service on later life health and mortality. For this project, London and Wilmoth have received a large, four-year grant from the National Institute of Aging. Additionally, with Colleen Heflin and Janet M. Wilmoth, London received a one-year, small grant from the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan to do a paper that examines veteran status, disability, poverty, and material hardship. London continues to work collaboratively with researchers at AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA) in New York City on a couple of research projects, including a study of service needs and use among older persons with HIV/AIDS who receive services at GMHC (Gay Men’s Health Crisis) in New York City. He also served as a research consultant on a project entitled “Assessing the Current Use of the Food Stamp Program after the Implementation of ACCESS, an On-line Service Delivery Tool,” which was funded by a Research Innovation and Development Grant in Economics from the Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service that was awarded to Colleen Heflin.
Len Lopoo conducts research on social policies and their influence on children and families in the United States. He is currently working on a number of projects, including examining the consequences of teenage fertility and the relationship between maternal employment and adolescent outcomes.
John Palmer's research interests focus on federal budget policy, health care financing and retirement income security, comparative social policy, and the challenges posed by world-wide population aging. He is also a regular participant in various of the Maxwell School’s executive education programs, as well as in its signature, interdisciplinary, team-taught undergraduate course, Critical Issues for the United States: Coming to Public Judgment. Dr. Palmer served two presidentially-appointed terms from 2000 to 2008 as a public trustee for the Medicare and Social Security programs. He also recently co-directed a MacArthur Foundation funded two-year study under the joint auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Public Administration, culminating in the early 2010 publication of the book, Choosing The Nation’s Fiscal Future. His current activities include serving on the council of academic advisors of The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the board of directors of the New York State Health Foundation, and the advisory board of The Robertson Foundation for Government, and chairing the research advisory board of the Committee for Economic Development (CED). He is also as a trustee of the Central and Western New York State chapter of The Nature Conservancy.
Perry Singleton is a public and health economist whose recent research focuses on social policies that target people with disabilities. He is currently examining the effect of work-limiting disabilities on labor market outcomes and the labor disincentive effects of disability insurance. He is also studying the economic effects of health-care insurance administered through the US tax code.
Margaret Usdansky studies family life with an emphasis on single-parent families and the relationship between work and family life. She recently published “Veteran Status, Race and Marriage among Fragile Families” with Andrew London and Janet Wilmoth in the Journal of Marriage and Family. Their study finds that black veterans are just as likely to marry following a non-marital birth as white veterans, adding to a growing body of evidence that military service closes the black-white gap in marriage rates. Her work in progress includes studies of the consequences of child care and employment experiences for mothers and the disconnect between preferences and behavior with regard to couples’ division of paid and unpaid labor.
For more information about CPR programs and research projects, contact Peggy Austin. You may also obtain general information about CPR by calling +1 315-443-3114, or by sending an email to ctrpol@syr.edu.