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RESOURCES
Please click on each of the links below for details
Based on our extensive experience in related research and scholarly activities (1000+ scientific articles on topics related to the Health and Society perspective, which have been cited over 14,000 times by other authors) and our commitment to a multi-level approach to Population Health, we consider the following disciplines critical to our program: Social Epidemiology, Sociology, Health Behavior and Health Education, Medicine, History, Public Policy, Health Management and Policy, Neurosciences, Neuroendocrinology, Biostatistics, Biology, Economics, Genetics, Urban Planning, Demography, Education, Statistics, and Ecology. All of these disciplines are represented among the 15 members of our Steering Committee.
It is not possible to describe all of the research and educational strengths represented among the Steering Committee-- its members have received many honors and awards, only a few of which we can mention due to space limitations: Kaplan, and House are members of the Institute of Medicine; Kaplan was invited by the Nobel Committee to present at the Nobel Forum on the subject of health inequalities, the first invitation to a public health scientist; House is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Danziger received the Flynn Millennium prize; Howell was named a Charles E. Culpepper Foundation Medical Humanities Scholar; and House, Kaplan and Galea have received Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Investigator Awards. In addition to this distinguished group we have an additional set of faculty who serve as mentors or contribute in other ways to the Program adding to our already broad array, faculty from Political Science, Social Psychology, Womens Studies, Nursing, Social Work, Pediatrics, Environmental Health Sciences, African-American Studies, and Anthropology.
In addition to a broad array of academic departments from which Scholars can benefit, there are also a large number of Institutes, Centers, and special programs with which Scholars could also interact. A non-exhaustive list includes:
- Center on Social Epidemiology and Population Health (CSEPH). Directed by Kaplan, it houses a number of large research, training, and dissemination activities including the Michigan Initiative on Inequalities in Health (UM funded), the Interdisciplinary Center on Social Inequalities, Mind, and Body (NIH-funded P50), and 4-6 NIH and CDC-funded research projects. The center is focused on understanding health inequalities from socioeconomic, behavioral, social, psychological, biological, developmental, community, and international perspectives; developing policies to reduce these inequalities, and training researchers to understand the social determinants of healthy populations. Over 25 faculty from six units within the University are involved in this interdisciplinary effort.
- Survey Research Center (SRC). Directed by House for a decade, the SRC is internationally recognized as a leader in interdisciplinary social science. The SRC has evolved to a current array of ten major research programs: Economic Behavior; Youth and Social Issues; Social Environment and Health; Survey Methodology; Life Course Development; Family and Demography; Social Indicators; Socio-environmental Studies; Evolution and Human Adaptation; and, Environmental Studies.
- Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture, Health (CRECH). CRECH provides a forum for basic and applied public health research and training on relationships among ethnicity, culture, socioeconomic status and health. The Center seeks to develop new interdisciplinary frameworks for understanding these relationships while promoting effective collaborations among public health academicians, health providers, and local communities.
- Center for Human Growth and Development (CHGD). CHGD uses a multidisciplinary perspective to study children's physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development. CHGD has major programs devoted to Children in Poverty, Development and Mental Health, Cognition, Achievement and Culture, and Brain-Behavior relationships in the Developing Child.
- Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center. A collaborative partnership involving the School of Public Health, the Detroit Health Department, and six community-based organizations, it promotes and supports interdisciplinary, collaborative, community-based participatory research in the east and southwest sides of Detroit on social determinants, protective factors, intermediate outcomes, and long-term health outcomes specific to inner-city, urban environments.
- Prevention Research Center (PRC). The PRC conducts community-based participatory prevention research aimed at improving the health status and reducing morbidity and mortality among poor populations. The interventions emphasize the role of families and communities in health promotion and disease prevention.
- Quantitative Methodology Program (QMP). QMP, which includes Raudenbush and Raghunathan, promotes innovative research at the intersections of social science and statistical science and facilitates the training of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. It involves more than 10 departments and Schools within the University.
- Program in Society and Medicine (PSM). Directed by Howell, the PSM brings together researchers and teachers interested in the relationships between health care and society from a wide range of non-biological perspectives.
- The Program for the Study of Complex Systems (PSCS): This program, of which Kardia is a member, centers on the study of biological, social, or physical systems in which feedback, regulation, and adaptation play an important role in the system's dynamics. It is fundamentally interdisciplinary in approach delving into issues of complexity as they relate to biology, neurosciences, economics, political science, epidemiology, genetics, and other areas.
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The University of Michigan is recognized as a world center on research related to the determinants of Population Health. The steering committee members have been very successful in carrying on active research and training programs, the majority of which are related to the Health and Society perspective. Their research has been cited over 14,000 times in the scientific literature. Collectively they have received more than $150 million in funding for research and training since 1988. Projects and databases of interest to Scholars include:
- Chicago Community Adult Health Study. Led by House, it is a groundbreaking study of the impact on health of social inequalities and psychological and other psychosocial risk factors in a sample of 4000 adults in a major American city, with the most thorough assessment ever of the urban social environment. It is studying for the first time in a large representative community, the role of social context, socioeconomic position, race/ethnicity, psychosocial factors, biological markers of stress, in a variety of health outcomes.
- National Survey of American Life (NSAL). The NSAL is an ambitious project being undertaken by the Program for Research on Black Americans. Interviews throughout the United States, and especially in urban and rural centers of the country will include 4,000 African Americans, 1,800 non-Hispanic whites, and 1,000 blacks of Caribbean descent. The survey includes state-of-the-art assessments of psychological distress and mental disorders and questions about neighborhood characteristics, religion, health and work.
- Economic Equity and Health (EEH). Involving Kaplan, House and others, the EEH program studies the links between economic equity, measured by inequality in income and health, and variety of health outcomes. Current foci include intensive comparisons of the US and Canada to uncover the policy and social mechanisms by which the income inequality-health relationship is blunted in Canada compared to the US.
- Community Action Against Asthma (CAAA). Part of Israels "Centers for Environment and Children," CAAA is focused on reducing exposure to physical environmental and psychosocial environmental stressors associated with asthma severity and exacerbation, and strengthening factors that modify the effect of these stressors on children with asthma, their caregivers, and the neighborhoods and broader community in which they reside.
- Women's Employment Study (WES). Led by Sheldon Danziger, the WES project examines barriers to employment among welfare mothers in an ongoing panel study of current and former welfare recipient families in an urban county in Michigan. A more extensive health section as been added, including biologic measures, in collaboration with Kaplan and others.
In addition to data collected by faculty in past and ongoing projects, far too numerous to list, Scholars have access to the following data sources, among many others:
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