Heflin receives two grants from UKCPR
Colleen Heflin, professor of public
administration and international affairs, was awarded funding for two projects
by the University of Kentucky’s Center for Poverty Research. Heflin received
$49,889 for a project titled "Changing Patterns of Eligibility and Take up in
SNAP and the Roles of Out of Pocket Medical Expenses." She is also part of a
multi-institution team granted $250,000 for a project titled "Food Insecurity
and Chronic Diseases in Low-Income Older Americans: The Role of SNAP Receipt in
Medication Underuse."
Heflin’s project seeks to understand the
temporal dimensions of eligibility for the U.S. Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP), in light of increased participation in SNAP by older
adults. This project will also assess the relationship between out-of-pocket
medical expenditures and SNAP participation. It aims to provide insights for
policy makers seeking to address the burden of medical and food expenses among
senior families.
The larger, team project responds to the
increasingly visible link between food insecurity and poor health among older
adults. This relationship is thought to result from poor diet quality and
medication avoidance among seniors who are unable to purchase both food and
necessary prescription medication. Heflin’s work will assess whether SNAP
benefits help reduce this link between food insecurity and poor health. Heflin
is co-investigator on a team that also includes principal investigator Irma Arteaga
(University of Missouri) and co-investigators Leslie Hodges (USDA) and
Chinnedum Ojinaka (Arizona State University).
The University of Kentucky’s Center for
Poverty Research (UKCPR) was established in 2002 in order to support research
on causes, consequences, and correlates of poverty, inequality, and food
insecurity across the United States. UKCPR works at the interdisciplinary
juncture of economics, public policy, political science, public health,
sociology, and social work. UKCPR also sponsors conferences of low-income
populations and helps with grant-making and mentoring programs.
Heflin, who is also a senior research
associate with the Center for Policy Research and affiliated with the Aging
Studies Institute, specializes in social, poverty, and child and family
policies. Her overarching academic project focuses on processes that produce
social stratification, especially concerning welfare policy and the well-being
of vulnerable populations. Heflin’s research has resulted in numerous scholarly
articles and book chapters, including in the journals Social Problems, Social
Service Review, and Social Science
& Medicine.
You can read more about the UKCPR on its website.
05/01/20