News and Events

News and Announcements | Events

News and Announcements

• New Report on SNAP Waivers and Flexibilities During COVID-19 - June 1, 2021

  When the COVID-19 pandemic first gripped the nation in March 2020, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – the largest anti-hunger program in the country – came into the spotlight as a critical part of the public response to the pandemic. Researchers at the Institute for Health and Social Policy (IHSP) based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) in partnership with the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) conducted a rapid response research project to understand the opportunities and challenges to implementing SNAP during the pandemic. This report synthesizes the results of a nationwide survey of state SNAP administrators and provides their perspectives on the successes, challenges, and lessons learned from waivers and flexibilities used to preserve equitable access to SNAP during the first calendar year of the pandemic. Based on state agency survey responses, this report summarizes key findings and provides policy considerations for the future of SNAP. We are currently conducting follow-up focus groups with state SNAP administrators and will release a part 2 report in the next several months. View the executive summary and full report here. 

• New Report to Advance Housing Mobility Research - May 6, 2021
  
  As evidence grows that housing mobility programs can vastly improve residents’ life trajectories, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Institute for Health and Social Policy based at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a network of experts released a report to help inform and guide supplementary research on the new Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Mobility Demonstration Program from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Including input from leaders in the housing, health, education, and economic development fields, the Report of the Housing Mobility Research Road Map Project provides research considerations for the HCV Mobility Demonstration Program, which will begin funding nine public housing agencies in Spring 2021 to provide housing vouchers and mobility services to help families move to lower-poverty neighborhoods. Housing mobility programs have the potential to disrupt historic patterns of segregation and increase families’ economic mobility. As these programs are implemented, there will be opportunities for research to inform a broad range of public policies including health, education, and housing policy. View the fact sheet about the report. 

• New Study on COVID-19 Related Political Advertising and the 2020 Presidential Election
  
  IHSP faculty, Beth McGinty and Adam Levine, along with Colleen Barry (JHSPH), Hahrie Han (JHU), and Erika Franklin Fowler (Wesleyan Media Project) will examine the association between COVID-19 related political advertising and: (1) perceptions of the importance of COVID-19 as a voting issue and (2) vote choice. The researchers will study how different types of COVID-19 political messages in political advertisements influenced vote choice. Specifically, they will consider: public health-focused messages (e.g., importance of masks); hopeful/optimistic COVID-19 messages (e.g., “winning the COVID-19 war”); messages about the severity of the COVID-19 crisis (e.g., COVID-19 death count); and messages focused on scientific expertise (e.g., “the research says…”). The proposed study will add to a small but growing body of research on how public health-related content embedded in political advertising can influence audiences’ political and policy preferences. Findings from this line of inquiry can inform whether and how campaigns emphasize public health issues in their advertising. Stay tuned for more on this study. 
• IHSP's Op-Eds on COVID-19 
  • Paid sick leave is a public health policy by Keshia M. Pollack Porter
  • Schools close to contain coronavirus. Will it work? Depends on what we do with our kids by Elizabeth Stuart, Keri Althoff, Justin Lessler, Craig Pollack
  • To protect inmates and the nation from COVID-19, release offenders who pose no threat by Brendan Saloner and Sachini Bandara 
• IHSP welcomes Yeeli Mui, PhD, MPH
  • Yeeli Mui, PhD, MPH is an assistant professor in the Department of International Health and a Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health in Obesity and the Food System. Her research program focuses on strengthening policy to create equitable, sustainable, and healthy communities. Mui applies an urban planning lens to obesity prevention and food systems that enables critical examination of the relationships between food and other systems of the built environment, such as land use and housing. Part of a multi-country effort, she is leading an interdisciplinary team to mitigate food inequities of small-scale farmers experiencing urbanization and climate change pressures in Kerala, India. Mui is also evaluating the role of collective efficacy and collaborative governance models to drive policy and food systems change at the local level in different U.S. cities. 
• 2019 Delta Omega Inductee 
  • On behalf of the Institute for Health and Social Policy and the Department of Health Policy and Management, we would like to congratulate Jenna Bluestein, MPP '19, on her induction into the John's Hopkins Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health. As a MPP student, Jenna worked with the Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition to advocate for the establishment of safe consumption sites in Baltimore. She also worked with IHSP faculty from the Johns Hopkins Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy Research to co-author a peer-reviewed article on efforts to establish safe consumption sites in five jurisdictions across the United States. Jenna is a leader, and this honor recognizes her current and future contributions to the field of public health!​
• Grants awarded
  • Alyssa Moran, ScD, MPH​ is the Principal Investigator and is partnering with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health to collect baseline data on fast-food restaurant meal orders and dietary intake from children dining at fast-food restaurants in Philadelphia, PA as part of a large-scale evaluation of healthy default beverage laws. 
  • Craig E. Pollack, MD, MHS, is the Principal Investigator and recipient of a $100,000 grant from Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Pollack and colleagues will merge data from the National Health Interview Survey with data on housing constructed using the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to study the health status of children who live in housing constructed using the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit - the nation's largest funder of affordable housing. 
  • Beth McGinty, PhD, MS, is the recipient of a $50,000 President’s Frontier Award for her proposal Studying Strategies to Increase Public and Decision maker Support for Medication Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder. This study will use randomized message testing experiments to examine strategies designed to persuade the public and key decision makers, including healthcare leaders, of the importance, effectiveness and feasibility of using evidence-based medication treatment for opioid use disorder.
  • Alyssa Moran, ScD, MPH, is one of nine researchers to receive funding from Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which focuses on promoting healthy eating among children. Her research will examine the incremental and combined impact of participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and receiving housing assistance on nutrition and health in U.S children

Events

• Baltimore, Apartheid, and the Deceptions of Data, Tuesday, September 14, 20211 Noon-1 p.m. EST
  The Institute for Health and Social Policy's Annual Lecture features Lawrence Brown, PhD, MPA, Director of the Black Butterfly Project and Director of "The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America." Please check back for more information on the live webcast. 
   
• We Stand With Public Health-Live Webcast, Wednesday, February 24, 2021 
  The special "We Stand with Public Health" webcast focused on the pressure and threats our public health officials face and what we can do together to protect them. Experts shared data about the extent of the problem, several public health officials will share personal stories, and calls to action to address these troubling realities.
  
  This important conversation was moderated by Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement Joshua Sharfstein, MD, and included state and local public health officials from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, National Association of County and City Health Officials, and the Big Cities Health Coalition.