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Nonfinancial Factors Shape Food Insecurity Among U.S. Older Adults

Madonna Harrington Meyer and Colleen M. Heflin
Nonfinancial factors such as poor physical and mental health, lack of access to healthy food, and transportation challenges make it more difficult for older adults to obtain, prepare, and consume healthy food. Based on the book, Food for Thought: Understanding Older Adults Food Insecurity, this brief summarizes how nonfinancial factors function as both causes and consequences of food insecurity in old age. 
September 23, 2025

How Commerce Became Legal: Merchants and Market Governance in Nineteenth-Century Egypt

Omar Cheta

Omar Cheta, assistant professor of history, has written How Commerce Became Legal: Merchants and Market Governance in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2025). The book explores Egypt’s adoption of a new infrastructure of commercial laws and institutions following the country’s opening to private capital in the 1840s. 

September 16, 2025

Saving the “Lungs of the City”: Emerging Civic Action in Urban Environmental Policy: Case Studies from Tampere, Finland and Worcester, Massachusetts

Markus Lainea, Selina Gallo-Cruz, Helena Leino

Co-authored by Associate Professor of Sociology Selina Gallo-Cruz, the article was published in Local Environment.

September 16, 2025

Budget Tradeoffs Shape Food Insecurity Among U.S. Older Adults

Madonna Harrington Meyer and Colleen M. Heflin
For low-income older adults, it may be difficult to meet basic needs on a fixed monthly income.  This brief summarizes how budget tradeoffs between food and other essential expenses—housing, utilities, medical care, transportation, and personal and cleaning supplies—shape food insecurity among older adults. 
September 16, 2025

See related: United States

Between Dovecotes and Columbaria: Rock-Cut Architecture in 19th Century Cuba

Odlanyer Hernandez-de-Lara, José Manuel Gil Avalos, Judith Rodríguez Reyes, Esteban Grau González-Quevedo, Darién Urquiza Rives

The article, co-authored by Odlanyer Hernández de Lara, Ph.D. candidate and part-time instructor in anthropology, was published in Post-Medieval Archaeology.

September 11, 2025

The Pandemic Journaling Project: A New Dataset of First-Person Accounts of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sarah S. Willen, Katherine A. Mason, Heather M. Wurtz, Sebastian Karcher

Co-authored by Sebastian Karcher, director of the Center for Qualitative and Multi-Method Inquiry and the Qualitative Data Repository, was published in PLOS One.

September 11, 2025

See related: COVID-19

Failure. Russia Under Putin

Brian Taylor

Brian Taylor, professor of political science, contributed a chapter to the recently published book Failure. Russia Under Putin (Bloomsbury, 2025). He is one of multiple authors who share their views on Russia’s failures under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. 

September 11, 2025

Policy Recommendations to Reduce Old Age Food Insecurity in the United States

Colleen M. Heflin and Madonna Harrington Meyer

The current policy responses to old age food insecurity are complex, costly, and not nearly effective enough. Based on the book, Food for Thought: Understanding Older Adults Food Insecurity, this brief summarizes five policy recommendations to improve food insecurity among U.S. older adults. 

September 10, 2025

See related: United States

Climate-Induced Redistribution of People Is Not Inevitable

Ingrid Boas, Farhana Sultana et al

The article, co-authored by Professor of Geography and the Environment Farhana Sultana, was published in Environmental Research Letters.

September 9, 2025

The 2024 Chapel Hill Expert Survey on Political Party Positioning in Europe: Twenty-Five Years of Party Positional Data

Jan Rovny, Jonathan Polk, Ryan Bakker, Liesbet Hooghe, Seth Jolly, Gary Marks, Marco Steenbergen, Milada Anna Vachudova
Co-authored by Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science Seth Jolly, the article was published in Electoral Studies.
September 9, 2025

See related: Europe, Political Parties

Do Immigrants’ Partisan Preferences Influence Americans’ Support for Immigration?

Daniel McDowell, David A. Steinberg

The article, co-authored by Professor of Political Science Daniel McDowell, was published in the Journal of Experimental Political Science.

September 9, 2025

How is Food Insecurity Measured in the United States and What Share of Older Adults are Food Insecure?

Colleen M. Heflin and Madonna Harrington Meyer
Based on the book, Food for Thought: Understanding Older Adults Food Insecurity, this brief summarizes the limitations of food insecurity measurements, noting that existing measures do not account for barriers that are common among older adults, such as mobility, physical distance, and transportation barriers.
September 9, 2025

See related: United States

Food for Thought: Understanding Older Adult Food Insecurity

Colleen Heflin, Madonna Harrington Meyer

Written by Colleen Heflin, professor of public administration and international affairs, and University Professor Madonna Harrington Meyer, the book examines the issue of food insecurity among older adults in the United States. 

September 4, 2025

Differences in Religious Attendance Among Disabled and Nondisabled Early and Early Midlife Adults

Scott D. Landes, Katie Mueller

The article, co-authored by Professor of Sociology Scott Landes, was published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

September 2, 2025

Self-Reported ADHD Diagnosis and Illicit Drug Use and Prescription Medication Misuse Among U.S. Working-Age Adults

Andrew S. London, Kevin M. Antshel, Joshua Grove, Iliya Gutin, Shannon M. Monnat

The study, co-authored by Maxwell sociologists Andrew London and Shannon Monnat along with Ph.D. student Joshua Grove and Research Assistant Professor Iliya Gutin, was published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.

September 2, 2025

Bosnian Fluxes, Belonging, Caring, and Reckoning in a Post-Cold War Semiperiphery

Azra Hromadžić

Azra Hromadžić, professor and undergraduate director for anthropology, has contributed to a recently published book, Bosnian Fluxes: Belonging, Caring, and Reckoning in a Post-Cold War Semiperiphery (Routledge, 2025).

August 29, 2025

See related: Europe

How Local Health Departments Use Wastewater Surveillance Data for Public Health Planning and Intervention in New York State

Shailla Raymond, Mila Neyra, Dustin T. Hill, Ainsley Maclachlan, Jordan McGuire, Matthew Mahaney, Nicole Pulido, Bhavneet Walia, Nan Yang, Yifan Zhu, Yiquan Zhou, David A. Larsen

The article, co-authored by public health professors David Larsen and Bhavneet Walia along with Nicole Pulido, a research associate in the Public Health Department, was published in BMC Public Health.

August 25, 2025

Which Public Values are Most Important? Linking Political Ideology and Public Service Motivation to Public Values Preferences

Nathan Favero, Colt Jensen, Minjung Kim, Jaclyn Piatak

The study, co-authored by Minjung Kim, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs, was published in the American Review of Public Administration.

August 22, 2025

See related: Government, United States

Why Are Food System Workers Excluded from Local Food Policy Councils?

Frank Sarfo, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and Jonnell A Robinson
This brief summarizes findings from a study that examined the challenges and barriers that have limited FPCs’ engagement with labor issues. The authors find that internal tensions, limited capacity, and weak ties to labor groups hinder FPC engagement in food labor advocacy.
August 20, 2025

See related: United States

Is Health Insurance Related to Breastfeeding Duration?

Anna De La Paz
This data slice describes differences in breastfeeding duration by insurance type among females ages 15-49 in the U.S. from 2022-2023. Findings show that mothers with private insurance breastfeed longer than mothers with public insurance, such as Medicaid. 
August 19, 2025

See related: United States

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