Population Health Research Brief Series

Anna Wiersma Strauss

This brief summarizes findings from a study that examines the effect of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on unpaid caregiving for adults. The author finds that in response to more generous EITC benefits, younger recipients increase their time spent on paid work and maintain their time spent assisting adults, while older recipients maintain their time spent on paid work and increase their time spent assisting their parents.

Hyeonji Cho

This data slice uses data from the 2002-2022 Health and Retirement Study to examine the changes in grandparent support to grandchildren by age group in the U.S.

Nastassia Vaitsiakhovich, Scott D. Landes, Jean P. Hall, and Bonnielin K. Swenor

U.S. federal surveys commonly use two question sets to measure disability: the American Community Survey (ACS-6) and the Washington Group Short Set (WG-SS). This data slice examines the percentage of disabled people captured by these two different survey sets. 

Kira England and Alexander Chapman

This brief summarizes findings from a study that examined gender and marital status differences in high-risk polysubstance use among U.S. adults ages 18 and older. The authors find that polysubstance use is higher among men and marriage was more protective against polysubstance use for men than women. 

Andrew S. London and Kevin M. Antshel

This brief summarizes findings from a study that examined whether having a sibling and/or a parent on active duty in the U.S. military is associated with suicidality (i.e., thinking about death a lot, believing oneself is better off dead, thinking about suicide, planning suicide, and attempting suicide) among 12- to 17-year-old adolescent girls and boys in the United States. 

Hannah Patnaik, Andrew S. London, and Kevin M. Antshel

This brief summarizes findings from a recently completed pilot study testing the efficacy of behavioral interventions aimed at encouraging daily physical activity (i.e., steps measured with an activity tracker) among adolescents with ADHD. 

Catherine García

This data slice shows the stark geographic inequities in travel times to the nearest hospitals in Puerto Rico and calls for urgent policy action to address disparities in hospital accessibility.

Michah W. Rothbart, Jeehee Han, and Zac Reeves

This brief summarizes the findings from a study that analyzed the effectiveness of Universal Free Meals and Breakfast in the Classroom at increasing student school breakfast and lunch participation in capacity-constrained schools. 

Huseyin Zeyd Koytak

This brief summarizes findings from a study that examined over 50 million tweets (later rebranded as X) from 2020 to 2022 to investigate the patterns, justifications, and socioeconomic roots of vaccine hesitancy in the United States. 

Michah W. Rothbart, Zoe Lindenfeld, Diana Silver, and Amanda I. Mauri

This brief highlights findings from a study on how counties extractive policing practices (e.g., fines and forfeitures) as well as spending on public health are associated with opioid overdose deaths.

Monica Deza

This brief summarizes findings from a study that examines how seasonal pollen allergies affect traffic fatalities in the U.S. The authors find that traffic fatalities increase 5.8% on days when the local pollen count is particularly high.

Ali Jones and Marc A. Garcia

This brief highlights Black-White disparities in asthma prevalence and demonstrates how living in unhealthy conditions results in a higher burden of asthma in Black communities.

Shana Kushner Gadarian, Jay J. Van Bavel, Eric Knowles, and Kai Ruggeri

This brief summarizes the impacts of political polarization on public health in the U.S., highlighting the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study on the health risks of polarization. 

Bryce Hruska, Maria L. Pacella-LaBarbara, and Marley S. Barduhn

This data slice shows that EMS personnel at agencies with high-risk PSC levels report 38% more mental illness stigma in the workplace compared to workers at agencies with low-risk PSC levels.

Scott D. Landes, Bonnielin K. Swenor, and Jean P. Hall

This brief summarizes findings from a recent study that shows that, by using the Washington Group Short Set on Functioning (WGSS) questions in the National Health Interview Survey, our federal government is failing to accurately identify the severity of functional limitations specifically related to vision and hearing. 

Nastassia Vaitsiakhovich, Scott D. Landes, and Shannon M. Monnat

This brief summarizes findings from a study that examined differences in happiness and perceived meaning in life between U.S. working-age adults (ages 18-64) with versus without a self-care disability (such as difficulty eating, using the toilet, or dressing without assistance) and the role social support plays in improving happiness and meaning in life.

Catherine García, Lauren L. Brown, and Marc A. Garcia

This brief provides an overview of the social determinants of healthy aging, provides recommendations for how policymakers can improve the socioeconomic, health care, and social, built, and physical environmental conditions that influence healthy aging, and proposes policies that can help the U.S. prepare to better meet the needs of its increasingly diverse older adult population. 

Sierra Kaplan

This brief describes health and aging care service gaps for U.S. older adults, including how Medicare limitations lead to high health care costs, and encourages the federal government to shore up Medicare, long-term care services, and the supply of aging care specialists to better support America’s growing older adult population.

Xue Zhang and Shannon M. Monnat

This brief summarizes the findings from a study that used data from the 2022 National Wellbeing Survey on 7,612 U.S. adults aged 18-64 to identify characteristics of adults who were least likely to get the COVID-19 vaccine and the characteristics associated with different types of vaccine hesitancy.

Katarina A. Sako and Janet M. Wilmoth

This brief presents findings from research that used data from the 2021 Health and Retirement Study to examine differences in health care delays and health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic among a nationally representative sample of U.S. older adults (ages 50+) with versus without cognitive decline.