phd funding health inequalities

PhD Fellowships for Health Professionals

Wellcome’s PhD Programmes for Health Professionals offer health professionals outstanding research training in supportive and inclusive research environments. Fellowships supported through these programmes aim to create knowledge, build research capability and train a diverse group of future leaders in clinical academia, within a positive research culture.

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Scheme at a glance  

Salary and research expenses covered

3 years (full-time equivalent)

Key dates  

Individual programmes recruit PhD fellows annually. Please contact individual programmes for more information on recruitment cycles and the application process.

Eligibility and suitability  

Who can apply, who can't apply show, who can apply.

The  PhD Fellowships for Health Professionals are for individuals who have demonstrated the potential to pursue a career as an academic health professional.  

Our programmes are based in centres of excellence throughout the UK. These programmes provide research opportunities for registered health professionals and specialities, including:   

• allied health professionals (art therapists, chiropodists/podiatrists, dieticians, drama therapists, music therapists, occupational therapists, operating department practitioners, orthoptists, osteopaths, paramedics, physiotherapists, prosthetists and orthotists, radiographers, and speech and language therapists)
• chiropractors
• clinical psychologists
• dental hygienists
• dental nurses
• dental therapists
• doctors (all specialities, including General Practitioners)
• healthcare scientists (in life sciences, physiological sciences, physical sciences and biomechanical engineering, and bioinformatics)
• health visitors
• non-medical public health specialists
• optometrists and dispensing opticians
• pharmacists
• social workers
• pharmacy technicians
• practitioner psychologists

Individual programmes have their own eligibility requirements. See ‘How to apply’ for more details.

Who can't apply

You can’t apply for this award if you’re looking for funding to do a PhD outside of our programmes. See details of the recruiting programmes in ‘How to apply’.

You can’t apply to carry out activities that involve the transfer of grant funds into mainland China.

What we offer  

Costs you can claim for, what we don't offer show, costs you can claim for.

A PhD undertaken as part of one of our programmes is for three years. Some programmes may offer opportunities for additional support pre- or post-PhD. Fellowships can be undertaken on a part-time basis.

Each programme includes support for:

• a salary in line with the most appropriate clinical salary scale in the UK, as determined by the host organisation
• PhD registration fees at the home (UK) rate. We will not fund the difference between this rate and the international fee rate. Visit the individual programme pages or contact the programme teams for more details on the fees you may be required to pay.
• college fees (where required)
• research expenses
• essential travel costs, including registration fees, childcare and costs for other caring responsibilities. Find out about the costs Wellcome fellows can claim on a grant .
• training costs, including for technical, discipline-specific and transferrable skills.

What we don't offer

We don’t fund overheads .

How to apply  

Individual programmes show.

To apply for a PhD Fellowship for Health Professionals, contact the relevant programme directly. Please don’t apply to the Wellcome Trust. 

The following PhD programmes for health professionals will recruit once per year.

4Ward North PhD Programme for Health Professionals

Available at:

• Newcastle University
• University of Leeds
• University of Manchester
• University of Sheffield.

Visit the programme page .

Contact: Saini Manninen ( [email protected] ). 

Edinburgh Clinical Academic Track  – Inclusive (ECAT-I) PhD Programme

• University of Edinburgh.

GW4-CAT PhD Programme for Health Professionals

• Cardiff University
• University of Bath
• University of Bristol
• University of Exeter.

Health advances in underrepresented populations and diseases (HARP) PhD Programme

• City University of London
• Queen Mary University of London.

King’s PhD Programme in Mental Health Research for Health Professionals

• King’s College London.

Visit the programme page.

Leicestershire Healthcare Inequalities Improvement PhD Programme (LHIIP)

• Loughborough University
• University of Leicester.

Contact: [email protected] . 

Liverpool Clinical PhD Programme for Health Priorities in the Global South

• Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
• University of Liverpool.

Midlands Mental Health & Neurosciences PhD Programme for Healthcare Professionals

• University of Birmingham
• University of Leicester
• University of Nottingham
• University of Warwick.

Contact: Roxanne Lockett ( [email protected] ). 

Multimorbidity PhD Programme for Health Professionals

• University of Dundee
• University of Edinburgh
• University of Glasgow
• University of St Andrews.

PhD Programme for Health Professionals at the Universities of Cambridge and East Anglia

• University of Cambridge
• University of East Anglia
• Wellcome Sanger Institute.

PhD Programme for Primary Care Clinicians

• Keele University
• Queen Mary University of London
• University College London
• University of Exeter
• University of Oxford
• University of Southampton.

Visit the programme page . 

PhD Programme in Global Health Research in Africa

• King's College London
• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• St George's University of London
• University of Sussex.

Contact: Katherine Barrett ( [email protected] ).

More information  

Read more information on how we selected these programmes through our  PhD Programmes for Health Professionals competition . This competition is closed to new applicants.

Our previously funded Clinical PhD Programmes are no longer recruiting new fellows.

Find out how we've worked with the funding community to develop principles and obligations  setting out what we expect from those responsible for clinical academic training across the UK.

If you have a question about your application, contact the relevant university PhD programme.

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New £11.6 million PhD Programme for health research in underrepresented populations

The Health Advances in Underrepresented Populations and Diseases (HARP) PhD Programme focuses research towards people and diseases that have traditionally been underrepresented in healthcare studies.

Tackling health inequalities is the target of a bold new £11.6 million programme of research from Queen Mary University of London and City, University of London, which will train 32 healthcare PhDs over eight years.

Funded by Wellcome, together with support from The Medical College of Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital Trust, Barts Charity, City, University of London, Barts Health NHS Trust and East London NHS Foundation Trust, the Health Advances in Underrepresented Populations and Diseases ( HARP) PhD Programme recognises that if groups of people are not represented in research, then discoveries from that research are less likely to be relevant or of benefit to them.   Most research studies identify participants through clinics or other health settings, meaning groups of people who encounter difficulties in accessing healthcare are often the same groups who are underrepresented in research, making the health differences worse.  

Co-director of HARP, William Alazawi, Professor of Hepatology at Queen Mary, outlines the remit of the new programme:

“People can be underrepresented in research for many different reasons: s ocial inequalities such as with gender or ethnicity; circumstances that marginalise people such as poverty or homelessness; and certain health conditions such as mental health or rare diseases. This is largely because researchers have not been trained to adapt their research to be more inclusive of people with different healthcare needs. If we don’t study disease in a particular group, how do we know that our discoveries are relevant to people in that group? These are the issues that the HARP PhD Programme will address.”

HARP co-director, Edel O’Toole, Professor of Molecular Dermatology at Queen Mary, adds:

“Once you become aware of the problems around underrepresented groups, you see it all over healthcare. If you live and work in the East End of London, you are constantly reminded of the consequences of this and many of our researchers are already working hard, alongside local communities, to address these problems. In fact this is what brought City and Queen Mary together in this bid. ”

HARP director, Márta Korbonits is a Professor of Endocrinology at Queen Mary, and leads a research programme into rare endocrine diseases. She has found similar challenges in her area of work, saying:

“If you have a rare disease there may only be a handful of clinicians and scientists working on that condition; therefore, research on disease mechanisms or diagnostic and therapeutic options is limited. HARP PhD fellows will be committed to redressing this major cause of health inequality.”

About the programme

HARP is open to any health professional, regardless of background and the directors are particularly looking for people who bring a fresh new perspective to research.

The programme also offers support for clinicians who have not previously had the opportunity to gain research experience. They will receive 12 months’ salary, and funding for research costs, in order to gain insight into research and improve their chances of success in competing for a PhD fellowship.

Professor Leanne Aitken, co-director of the programme and Associate Dean of Research and Enterprise at the School of Health Sciences at City, University of London, shares:

“Over the lifetime of the programme, we will recruit 32 PhD fellows, regardless of background or profession, who are driven and enthusiastic and show their ability to conduct world-class research with our supervisors. 

“Getting the right people and improving the culture and environment in which they work is the first step towards achieving the health advances our underrepresented populations urgently need.”

Fellows will receive financial support from Barts Health NHS Trust and East London NHS Foundation Trust for a year after their PhD to remain academically active and continue to benefit from mentoring support from the HARP Faculty for two years.

Social Action for Health, a community-based health charity which works with local communities to address health and well-being issues most affected by health inequalities, have pledged to support HARP researchers’ learning in community engagement. 

Ceri Durham, CEO of Social Action for Health comments:

“ We are very aware that current academic researchers do not generally come from the communities with the greatest health difficulties. By supporting a programme which changes this, we are supporting a feasible and ambitious employment option for those underrepresented groups. In turn, this will support those communities to articulate their needs and priorities and ensure a cycle of research leading to sustained change and increased representation going forward. ”

How to apply

Candidates can apply to HARP at the harpphd.org website . The deadline for September/October 2022 entry is Monday 31 January 2022 .

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Leicestershire Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Doctoral Training Programme

This prestigious PhD programme will look to address the unique health issues faced by Leicester and Leicestershire’s ethnically and culturally diverse population, recently amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thanks to funding from the Wellcome Trust, we are offering funding opportunities for 25 Research Fellows over five years, which will provide nurses, midwives, allied health professionals and doctors with the chance to pursue academic research.

Our friendly Programme Team is here to help. Please direct all programme-related queries to [email protected] .

2024 applications

Apply now for the 2024 cohort of the Leicestershire Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Doctoral Training Programme

About the programme

Projects and supervisors 2024, our fellows, application help and advice, follow us on twitter, programme governance.

The principles and rules governing this programme.

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Health Inequalities

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Professor Kelly is a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge and a member of St John’s College. Between 2005 and 2014 he was the Director of the Centre for Public Health at the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) where he led the teams producing public health guidelines. While at NICE he appeared regularly on the Today Programme and BBC, ITV and Sky Television. He has advised the House of Commons Health Select Committee and been a witness before parliamentary committees on a number of occasions.

Yaning (she/her) is a PhD student at the NIHR Blood and Transplant Research Unit in Donor Health and Behaviour. Using world-first large-scale datasets of voluntary blood donors in England, she is investigating the short- and long-term health effects of donation and hopes to generate evidence that will impact upon policy and practice in donor selection, care, and communications. Yaning has a background in epidemiology, social determinants of health, data science, and causal inference.

Giacomo Bignardi

Giacomo is a research associate in the Department of Psychology.

Giacomo’s research centres on social inequalities in educational and mental health outcomes in childhood and adolescence. He has a particular interest in psychometrics and data science. Before his post-doctoral appointment, Giacomo completed his PhD at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge.

Xinye Zou is a final-year PhD student at the University of Cambridge, specialising in social medicine and health education. She holds a Master's degree from Harvard University and a BSc from Syracuse University. Her principal areas of research encompass life course studies, socioeconomic determinants of health, health behaviour, health disparities, psychosocial well-being, health education, and healthcare management.

Susie Nightingale

Susie is the Research and Impact Co-ordinator at the Andrew and Virginia Rudd Centre, Faculty of Education.

Susan Ifeagwu

I am a PhD Candidate studying universal health coverage (UHC) in Sub-Saharan Africa with a focus on Uganda. My research interests span health systems strengthening in low- and middle-income countries, health inequalities, global health policy, development and sustainability.

Ronita Bardhan

Dr. Ronita Bardhan is Associate Professor of Sustainable Built Environment at the Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge. She leads the Sustainable Design research group at the university. Her research focuses on data-driven design for built environments that respond by reducing health and energy burdens in the warming climate. Bardhan combines architectural engineering, AI and machine learning with social sciences to develop built environment design solutions.

Anna Gkiouleka

Anna has an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Panteion University of Social & Political Sciences in Greece and a MSc Degree in Migration, Ethnic Relations & Multiculturalism from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. In 2020, she completed her doctoral research in health inequalities and was awarded a PhD in Sociology from the University of York in the UK. Her research suggests an intersectionality informed analytical framework for the study of health inequalities in Europe accounting for the co-constituting roles of socio-economic position, gender and migration status.

Jennifer Leggat

I am a Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE)-funded Policy Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy, working with the Public Health Directorate at Cambridgeshire County Council on their Health in All Policies strategy. As part of this work, I am focusing on the development and implementation of equity-focused Health Impact Assessments to reduce health inequalities across the County in the long-term.

My main interest is health inequalities and in particular what the NHS can do about them. I am currently working with NHS England and the University of York to look at inequalities in avoidable unplanned admissions across England to produce national recommendations. This involves exploration of national data and case studies in six different Clinical Commissioning Groups. My NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship looked at how disadvantaged older people from rural areas access primary care.

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Funding opportunity: Collaborative community research to tackle health inequalities

Last updated: 13 September 2023 - see all updates

Apply for funding to create and test collaborative models for the integration of cultural, community and natural environment assets into health and care systems. The aim is to create healthier communities and environments across the UK.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding.

Applications must be interdisciplinary and include appropriate partners and co-investigators from outside of academia.

The full economic cost (FEC) of each application can be between £625,000, and £2.5 million for 36 months. UKRI will fund 80% FEC.

Due to a technical issue, which has now been resolved, the closing date has been updated to 12 July 4:00pm UK time to facilitate submission for those impacted.

Who can apply

Before applying for funding, check the following:

• your proposal is suitable for AHRC funding
• the eligibility of your organisation
• remit query form if you are unsure whether your proposed research falls within the remit of the research councils involved

Who is eligible to apply

We strongly encourage researchers and consortia who were funded through the phase one and phase two funding opportunities to apply for funding:

• phase one: scale up health inequality prevention and intervention strategies
• phase two: build community research consortia to address health disparities

However, this is an open funding opportunity and funding from phase one or phase two is not a requirement.

Leadership team

Applications should be led by a strong, interdisciplinary leadership team who can articulate a clear shared vision for the project. You should ensure partnerships within the leadership team are equitable and support novel interdisciplinary approaches.

Co-investigators from community assets and other relevant sectors, as well as representation from people with lived experience, must be included as part of the leadership team. These co-investigators from outside of academia can be costed at 100% FEC where justified. This should be utilised to ensure equitable representation from different partners.

More detail about community assets and the inclusive interdisciplinary approach expected from applications can be found in the ‘What we are looking for’ section.

For administrative purposes it is necessary to identify a single principal investigator who must be affiliated with the lead research organisation. The principal investigator and their research office will be ultimately responsible for administration of the grant.

However, the balance of activity and management across the team and partner organisations can be shared however you see fit. For example, you could adopt a shared leadership approach with co-principal investigators included. Your approach to management, leadership and decision making must be clearly specified in your application.

Your application should be submitted by the principal investigator but must be co-created with input from all partners. This should be evidenced in the application.

Principal investigator

Standard AHRC eligibility criteria will apply to this funding opportunity for UK principal investigators and research organisations.

You must be a resident in the UK and be hosted by an eligible research organisation (higher education institutions or recognised independent research organisations) as stated in the research funding guide .

Co-investigators based at eligible research organisations

Standard AHRC eligibility criteria will apply to this funding opportunity for UK co-investigators based at eligible research organisations.

Co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations

Co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations must also be included in the leadership team, for example:

• policymakers
• local and national government
• third sector and voluntary organisations
• practitioners from relevant sectors
• people with lived experience or community researchers
• private sector
• health systems
• community organisations

Where justified, the time of these co-investigators can be listed under ‘Exceptions’ and will be funded at 100% FEC. 100% FEC ‘Exceptions’ costs are only for staff time and cannot include estates and indirect costs.

The combined costs for co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations must be a minimum of 10% of the total FEC of the grant application. If the combined cost for co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations is below 10%, you must clearly articulate why and how partners from outside academia are equitably included within the project. The combined cost cannot exceed 30% of the total FEC.

The intention behind this requirement is to ensure partners from outside of academia are appropriately included and funded within applications.

We recognise that some partners may be employed by a government-funded organisation. To avoid the double counting of public funds in the costings, no salary costs will be covered for co-investigators from government bodies where the person’s involvement in the project falls within their regular duties. Government organisations can only charge to the grant any additional costs they incur as a result of being involved in the project.

Please note that if there are international co-investigators in your application, the combined costs for co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations, and any international co-investigators must not exceed 30% of the FEC. You should consider what balance of co-investigators is needed and explain this clearly in your application.

Co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations should submit a statement of support from their organisation (if they are based at an organisation) as part of your application. This will be used to assess how effectively the proposed work integrates with community assets and other organisations outside of academia.

Interdisciplinary team

All applications must have a minimum of three individuals on the leadership team.

Applications requesting between £625,000 and £1.25 million FEC must include representation in the leadership team from remits of at least two UKRI research councils. At least £6.25 million of the total budget will be reserved for applications in this funding range.

Applications requesting between £1.25 million and £2.5 million FEC must include representation in the leadership team from remits of at least three UKRI research councils.

All applications must include at least one researcher from an arts and humanities discipline.

Disciplines included in your leadership team could include, but are not limited to, expertise from across:

• arts (for example, creative health, culture and heritage, design research)
• humanities (for example, health and medical humanities, ethics)
• social sciences (for example, psychology, demography, sociology, geography, education)
• environmental sciences (for example, natural sciences, environmental microbiology)
• biosciences and biomedicine (for example, agri-food production, diet, nutrition and health, lifelong health and wellbeing, microbiology)
• medical or health research (for example, population health sciences, nursing and other allied sciences, health systems and improvement, implementation sciences, mental health research)
• law and criminal justice
• built environment

Early career researchers

We particularly encourage applications from early career researchers (both as principal investigators and co-investigators) and regard this programme as an important pipeline for growing interdisciplinary researcher capacity in the UK. Support for leadership from early career researchers and showing that you have the right skills at the right level should be clearly explained in your application.

If the principal investigator is an early career researcher, as  defined by AHRC , a mentor must be included within the application. This mentor must be clearly outlined in the resources and cost justification section of the application form.

For mentoring cost, an hour per month of the mentor’s time should be built into the budget as a directly allocated cost and entered in the application form in the other directly allocated costs section. Estates and indirect costs for this one hour can also be charged to the grant.

Institutions may provide additional mentoring support alongside other forms of leadership or career development support for early career applicants.

Applicants at other stages of their career can also include mentorship in the application if it is felt it would support the project leadership and benefit delivery of the proposed work.

International applicants

Applications can include international project partners and co-investigators (for example international organisations, businesses, and government organisations) where established expertise is not available within the UK. International co-investigator costs can be funded as ‘Exceptions’ at 100% FEC.

Funded collaborative research grants will be UK-focused. The inclusion of international co-investigators and associated costs must be fully justified and how their inclusion will support the grant objectives clearly explained.

It is important to note that the combined costs for international co-investigators and co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations must not exceed 30% of the total FEC of the the grant application. You should consider what balance of co-investigators is needed and explain this clearly in your application.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers and partners.

We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:

• career breaks
• support for people with caring responsibilities
• flexible working
• alternative working patterns

Find out more about equality, diversity and inclusion at UKRI .

What we're looking for

About the programme.

This funding opportunity is phase three of the  mobilising community assets to tackle health inequalities  programme.

The programme is led by AHRC in partnership with NCCH, and is supported by BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, and NERC.

The programme is guided by AHRC’s Programme Director for Health Inequalities, Professor Helen Chatterjee. The role of the programme director is to provide intellectual leadership to the programme and facilitate coordination across, and bring coherence to, funded grants from the three phases of the programme.

This funding opportunity is supported through two UKRI strategic themes:

• ‘ building a secure and resilient world ’ aims to strengthen security and resilience, from individual to national level, across a range of social and economic areas at the heart of daily life
• ‘ creating opportunities, improving outcomes ’ aims to improve outcomes for people and places across the UK by identifying solutions that promote economic and social prosperity

Community assets

Community assets are broadly defined for this programme, to include organisations, individuals, networks and places which are used to support community interests. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• artists and arts organisations
• community centres
• community organisations and leaders
• heritage sites
• green and blue spaces such as parks, coastal areas, woodland, fields and waterways
• community kitchens and gardens, allotments, farms
• gyms and other sports- and exercise-related assets
• housing, legal, debt and advice services

Health inequalities

This programme uses the term health inequalities to include varying definitions and interpretations of inequality and inequity, including the unfair and avoidable differences in health across different population groups.

Understanding the drivers of such inequalities and the role of community assets in reducing these differences is a core tenet of this programme.

Research challenge

In the past decade there has been increased recognition of the links between economic and social inequalities, and of the uneven distribution of health outcomes within and between UK communities. Community assets are known to improve health outcomes, but such resources are also unevenly distributed.

• Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On (Institute of Health Equity)
• What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and wellbeing? A scoping review (World Health Organisation)
• Convention on Biological Diversity: strategic plan
• The role of cultural, community and natural assets in addressing societal and structural health inequalities in the UK: future research priorities (BMC)

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to broadening access to ‘social prescribing’ schemes, in which patients are typically referred to organisations in their communities that can provide a range of cultural, nature, and social-based activities to improve their physical and mental health.

Community assets are potentially a key vehicle for tackling health inequalities and creating community resilience to public health challenges including, but not limited to, mental health, poor environmental quality, nutrition and diet, and ageing.

To realise this potential, community assets need to be better integrated with health and social care systems, including NHS Integrated Care Systems in England and the devolved equivalents. Better integration of community assets into health systems will enable commissioners, funders, referrers and providers to better target support where it is needed most within communities.

There is also potential for community assets to be utilised to embed ‘planetary health’ approaches within health and care systems. Community assets which promote flourishing natural systems, and connectedness to nature, can help to achieve positive health outcomes. This supports the concept of planetary health, which focuses on the fact that the health of humans and the health of the environment are inextricably linked.

Integrating community assets into health systems can be challenging due to the complexity and precarity of many community assets, particularly regarding sustainable and long term funding. Community assets operate largely outside of statutory services, are unequally distributed across geographies, and tend to operate at small scales, with limited, short-term. The fragility of community assets is therefore a critical challenge.

Systems-level research is required to understand how community assets can be integrated with health systems and mobilised to address place-based health inequalities at a larger scale. Increased collaboration and partnerships across and between community assets, and with other key stakeholders (including but not limited to local authorities, health and social care, businesses, housing, education) is needed to achieve this.

Programme objectives

Collaborative research grants funded through this funding opportunity will work towards meeting the following programme objectives:

• to develop testable and replicable collaborative models for integrating community assets within the changing structures of health and social care in the UK, by understanding the complexities, barriers and enablers of integration
• to explain the links between these community assets and place-based health inequalities with a view to creating healthier, and more resilient, communities and environments, particularly for people living in the most deprived areas
• to converge data and learning from a range of local and regional models to inform the spread and adoption of collaborative models across the UK

Your application should be highly collaborative and have a strong focus on real world impact.

The duration of the funded projects is 36 months.

Projects must start by 1 February 2024.

Funding available

A total budget of £25 million is available to support applications for collaborative research grants under this funding opportunity.

At least £6.25 million of the total budget will be reserved to support high quality applications requesting between £625,000 and £1.25 million FEC. This is intended to support applications covering disciplines where the research community is not yet able to take on larger scale funding, or disciplines which have not yet been extensively engaged in this type of research.

Applications may request funding for 36 months, ranging from £625,000 to £2.5 million FEC.

UKRI will fund 80% FEC.

What we will fund

Through this funding opportunity we are looking to support inclusive, interdisciplinary research that builds upon existing resources to develop the evidence base and produce collaborative models for integrating community assets into health and care systems.

Collaborative research grants

Collaborative research grants will support high quality innovative research addressing the programme objectives, with interdisciplinary collaborations creating critical mass and expertise.

In addition to carrying out high quality research, collaborative grants will build capability and capacity in addressing the community assets and health inequalities challenge. They will attract new expertise to the field either through applying existing strengths to the research area, or through development of early career researchers, and partners from outside of academia.

Collaborative research grants will work closely with the AHRC Programme Director for Health Inequalities, Professor Helen Chatterjee, as part of a portfolio of grants funded through this opportunity.

Developing the evidence base

Funded collaborative research grants will develop an understanding of the complexities, barriers and enablers of integrating community assets with health and public health systems, for example the NHS Integrated Care Systems in England, or devolved equivalents.

Grants will progress the evidence base for the drivers of deprivation across communities and the links between community assets and health inequalities.

Producing collaborative models

Funded collaborative research grants will produce financial, collaborative and organisational models for targeted health prevention or intervention programmes, making community assets more commissionable within health systems.  They will scale up local-level models of community-asset health interventions to address health inequalities at regional and national levels.

Building upon existing resources

Applications should utilise and build upon existing research and resources across the community asset and health system sectors. Project plans should include asset mapping and create linkages to existing prevention programmes, interventions, and other resources.

Applications should maximise the use of relevant existing data resources in the first instance, as well as (where appropriate) producing data that responds to the proposed challenge and is of value to the wider community. You should consider the amount of work required to integrate data and evidence from different sectors and sources and build in time to project plans to achieve this.

Knowledge exchange

Applications should aim to connect research with decision-making at local, regional and national levels. You should consider including costed plans for knowledge exchange, communications, and stakeholder and public engagement into the project. The aim of which will be to change opinions, gather insights from individuals with lived experience, and gain support from different communities for the systemic changes needed to scale up and integrate community assets within health and care systems.

Effective knowledge exchange should be bi-directional and equitable: we expect to see evidence of how your engagement plans will both enable you to learn from relevant stakeholders and individuals or communities with lived experience and positively impact, involve and credit these groups, to inform decision-making.

Inclusive interdisciplinary research

Funded collaborative research grants must be made up of diverse but complementary groups of cross-disciplinary academics from across the arts, humanities, social, environmental, medical, health and biological sciences, working together with partners from outside of academia, including community asset and health system partners, and people with lived experience.

The level of interdisciplinarity in the funded collaborative grants will be expected to reflect the level of complexity of the interconnected systems needed to create change in health inequalities via community assets. For example, taking an ecosystem wide approach to understanding the links between the health of people and the health of the environment, and considering how community assets can support a ‘planetary health’ approach.

You are encouraged to include time in your project plan to develop a ‘shared language’ across the different disciplines and sectors involved in the project.

Collaborative grants must involve partnerships with stakeholders from relevant sectors including, but not limited to:

• healthcare systems, including social care
• community assets

Co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations can be included as part of the leadership team. This should be utilised to ensure equitable representation from different partners. We strongly encourage inclusion of practitioners and people working within relevant sectors, including those listed above, in project teams.

Funding should provide opportunities for diverse community representation within the collaborative grants. Collaborative grants should consider how the lived experience of individuals can be better integrated into health systems research through co-production.

You are encouraged to include lived experience or community researchers, or both, as a valuable addition to the project team and cost this contribution accordingly. Engagement with communities must be equitable and your plans must demonstrate that you have identified their needs and interests, and the ways in which they will positively benefit from participating in the project.

Applications should articulate how equality, diversity and inclusion will be considered in the approach to embedding lived experience as well as evidence that they have identified any barriers to access, and established plans to mitigate or overcome these barriers.

Underrepresented disciplines

Disciplines that have not extensively engaged with the community assets and health inequalities challenge are encouraged to apply as part of a collaborative grant. Examples could be from across the environmental sciences, as well as economics and disciplines interested in links between community assets and nutrition and diet. Partners and co-investigators from within and outside of academia covering underrepresented disciplines should be considered as part of applications.

Example challenges

The example challenges list provides some examples of specific challenges that could be addressed through this funding opportunity. The compilation of this list was guided by evidence from phase one and two of the programme. The list is not intended to unduly influence other ideas from outside the programme, within the remit of the funding opportunity.

The examples are intended to demonstrate the complexity of the challenges faced, and the need for interdisciplinary research and the inclusion of relevant sectors from outside of academia to address them.

Example challenges include, but are not limited to:

• understanding the opportunities, challenges and benefits of the co-location of services, assets, programmes, such as through community hubs, particularly regarding financial sustainability of such service provision, including understanding economic cost effectiveness and social value
• developing targeted approaches to tackling drivers of deprivation through system change by making it easier for commissioners, referrers, funders, health and community professionals to identify the poorest people living in the most deprived areas and offering SMART solutions to levelling up using community-based approaches
• designing and testing the feasibility of interventions and prevention strategies which tackle both health and the wider social determinants of health (for example, employment, housing, poverty, debt, healthier lifestyles, diet, exercise, environmental degradation) by supporting collaboration and integration across community assets
• exploring the role of anchor institutions, community development trusts, community interest companies and other community connector organisations in supporting links between health systems, community assets and people living in deprived areas. This could also involve understanding the synergistic opportunities presented by other funding schemes which support levelling up and public health research (such as the National Institute for Health and Care Research Health Determinants Research Collaborations)
• exploring how community assets can be mobilised to facilitate health and care interventions or prevention strategies that embed a planetary health approach, such as examining how green infrastructure can modify the impacts of climate change on urban environments, while simultaneously providing benefits to health and wellbeing or how community assets can be mobilised to simultaneously support pro-environmental and pro-healthy behaviours

What we will not fund

The following are not within scope:

• applications with no co-investigators from outside of academia
• applications with fewer than three investigators
• applications between £625,000 and £1.25 million which do not span the remits of at least two UKRI research councils
• applications over £1.25 million which do not span the remits of at least three UKRI research councils
• applications with no arts and humanities disciplines included
• development of novel interventions to improve individuals’ health
• research where the primary benefit is outside of the UK

Supporting skills and talent

We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment .

International collaboration

If your application includes international applicants, project partners or collaborators, visit Trusted Research for more information on effective international collaboration.

How to apply

There is a mandatory expression of interest (EOI) stage. To submit an EOI, fill in the survey by 4:00pm UK time on 31 May 2023.

If a full application is submitted without an EOI by the stated deadline, it will be rejected.

UKRI Funding Service

We are running the funding opportunity on the new UKRI Funding Service. You cannot apply for this opportunity on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S)system.

If you do not already have an account with the UKRI Funding Service, you will be able to create one by selecting the ‘start application’ button at the start of this page. Creating an account is a two-minute process requiring you to verify your email address and set a password.

If you are a member of an organisation with a research office that we do not have contact details for, we will contact them to enable administrator access. This provides:

• oversight of every UKRI Funding Service application opened on behalf of your organisation
• the ability to review and submit applications

Research offices that have not already received an invitation to open an account should email [email protected]

Submitting your application

Applications should be prepared and submitted by the lead research organisation but should be co-created with input from all investigators, and project partners, and should represent the proposed work of the entire consortia.

• Select the ‘Start application’ button at the start of this page.
• This will open the ‘Sign in’ page of UKRI’s Funding Service. If you do not already have an account, you’ll be able to create one. This is a two-minute process requiring you to verify your email address and set a password.
• Start answering the questions detailed in this section of ‘How to apply’. You can save your work and come back to it later. You can also work ‘offline’, copying and pasting into the text boxes provided for your answers.
• Once complete, use the service to send your application to your research office for review. They’ll check it and return it to you if it needs editing.
• Once happy, your research office will submit it to UKRI for assessment. Only they can do this.

As citations can be integral to a case for support, you should balance their inclusion and the benefit they provide against the inclusion of other parts of your answer to each question. Bear in mind that citations, associated reference lists or bibliographies, or both, contribute to, and are included in, the word count of the relevant section.

UKRI must receive your application by 11 July 2023 at 4:00pm UK time.

You will not be able to apply after this time.

You should ensure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines that may be in place.

UKRI will need to collect some personal information to manage your funding service account and the registration of your funding applications.

We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice .

AHRC will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity .

If your application is successful, some personal information will be published via the UKRI Gateway to Research .

UKRI Funding Service: section guidance

In plain English, provide a summary that can be sent to potential reviewers to determine if your proposal is within their field of expertise.

This summary may be made publicly available on external facing websites, so please ensure it can be understood by a variety of readers, for example:

• opinion-formers
• the general public
• the wider research community

Guidance for writing a summary Succinctly describe your proposed work in terms of:

• its context
• the challenge the project addresses and how it will be applied to this
• its aims and objectives
• its potential applications and benefits, including specific communities who will benefit

Word count: 500

List the key members of your team and assign them roles, for example:

• principal investigator
• co-investigator

You should only list one individual as principal investigator.

Section: vision

Question: what are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Explain how your proposed work:

• is of excellent quality and importance within or beyond the fields or areas
• has the potential to advance current understanding, generates new knowledge, thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area
• is timely given current trends, context and needs
• impacts world-leading research, society, the economy or the environment
• impacts upon health inequalities and delivers against the programme objectives

Please note the programme objectives are:

Within the vision section we also expect you to:

• use accessible, jargon-free, language. This section will be assessed by people with lived experience, as well as academic reviewers
• identify who will benefit from the project, and how the proposed work will impact upon this community

Word count: 500

Section: co-creation and lived experience

Question: how is co-creation and lived experience embedded in your proposed work?

• has clearly identified a relevant community and their needs
• impacts the communities you work with, including lived experience participants
• will create long-term positive change for the identified communities
• has included equitable co-creation and co-production with community partners and people with lived experience, and identified any barriers to access for those participants

Within the co-creation and lived experience section we also expect you to:

• use accessible and jargon-free language. This section will be assessed by lived experience reviewers as well as academic reviewers
• if needed, create and submit up to two images (each no larger than one side of A4) to support your application via a single PDF upload. These could be diagrams or images that explain your plans. Upload instructions will be provided within the service

Word count: 1,000

Section: approach

Question: How are you going to deliver your proposed work?

Explain how you have designed your approach so that it:

• is effective and appropriate to achieve your objectives
• is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to delivery and how they will be managed
• if applicable, uses a clear and transparent methodology
• if applicable, summarises the previous work and describes how this will be built upon and progressed
• will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts
• describes how your, and if applicable your team’s, research environment (in terms of the place, its location, and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the work
• explains the inclusive and interdisciplinary approach being used and how the different disciplines and sectors represented in the project team will add value to the approach
• demonstrates how equality, diversity and inclusion have been integrated into all stages of the research planning and delivery

Within the approach section we also expect you to:

• provide a detailed and comprehensive project plan including milestones and timelines in the form of a Gantt chart or similar (additional one-page A4)
• include a detailed and appropriate management plan for the proposed work, including how roles, responsibilities, and time allocated will be spread across the leadership team
• state which research council remits are represented in the proposed work, as per opportunity requirements (see ‘who can apply’ section)
• detail how equality, diversity and inclusion have been embedded in the research team. For example, through the inclusion of early career researchers, range of partner organisations and people with lived experience

Word count: 3,000

Section: data management and sharing

Question: how will you manage and share data collected or acquired through the proposed research?

Provide a data management plan which should clearly detail how you will comply with UKRI’s published data sharing policy which includes detailed guidance notes.

Word count: 1,000

Section: organisation letter (or email) of support from co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations

Question: for co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations, where applicable, upload a single PDF containing letters of support from each co-investigator organisation.

If your co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations are not associated with an organisation at all (for example, some people with lived experience), they do not need to submit a letter of support.

If this is the case for all of your co-investigators then add ‘N/A’ into the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next section.

If you have named co-investigators that are not based at eligible research organisations who can provide letters of support from their organisation, enter the words ‘attachment supplied’ in the text box below.

Each letter you provide should:

• state how they will deliver the project’s objectives
• describe how their organisation will support them during the lifetime of the project
• be no more than two sides of A4

Unless specifically requested, please do not include any personal data within the attachment.

Upload details are provided within the service on the actual application.

For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.

Word count: five

Section: project partners: contributions

Question: provide details about any project partners’ contributions using the template provided.

If you do not have any project partners, simply add ‘N/A’ into the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next section.

If you do have project partners, download and complete the project partner contributions template (DOCX, 52KB) then copy and paste the table within it into the text box below.

Ensure you have obtained prior agreement from project partners that, should you be offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the template.

Section: Project partners: letters (or emails) of support

Question: upload a single PDF containing the letters or emails of support from each partner you named in the table in the previous ‘contributions’ section.

If you have named project partners in the previous ‘contributions’ section, enter the words ‘attachment supplied’ in the text box below.

Each letter or email you provide should:

• confirm the partner’s commitment to the project
• clearly explain the value, relevance and possible benefits of the work to them
• describe any additional value that they bring to the project
• please refer to AHRC’s research funding guide for more guidance

Please do not provide letters of support from host organisation or co-investigators based at eligible research organisations.

Section: Applicant and team capability to deliver

Question: why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?

Evidence of how you, and if relevant your team, have:

• the relevant experience (appropriate to career stage) to deliver the proposed work
• the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work
• the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to develop others

Use the Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format to showcase the range of relevant skills you, and if relevant your team (investigators, researchers, other (technical) staff for example research software engineers, data scientists and so on, and partners), have and how this will help to deliver the proposed work. You can include individuals’ specific achievements but only choose past contributions that best evidence their ability to deliver this work.

Complete this section using the R4RI module headings listed below. You should use each heading once and include a response for the whole team, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI . You can enter N/A for any you think irrelevant, and will not be penalised for doing so, but it is recommended that you carefully consider the breadth of your experience:

• contributions to the generation of new ideas, tools, methodologies, or knowledge
• the development of others and maintenance of effective working relationships
• contributions to the wider research and innovation community
• contributions to broader research or innovation users and audiences and towards wider societal benefit
• additions (you can use this heading to provide information which provides context to the wider application, such as detail of career breaks – it is not a requirement)

You should complete this as a narrative and you should avoid CV type format.

Word count: 1,500

Section: outsourcing

Question: are you outsourcing any project activities?

If you are not, enter ‘N/A’ in the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next question.

UKRI recognises that in some instances, it may be appropriate to outsource elements of the proposed work. If that is the case in this application, please provide the following information:

• the scope of the outsourced activity, that means what is being undertaken and what will be delivered
• the relevance of the outsourced activity to the application
• why the outsourced activity cannot be undertaken in house
• why this provider is the most appropriate
• the cost or costs of the outsourced activity and the tendering process that has been followed

Please provide any goods and services quotations.

Section: ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI)

Question: what are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work? If you do not think that the proposed work raises any ethical or RRI issues, explain why.

Using the text box, demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated the relevant ethical or responsible research and innovation considerations, and how you will manage them.

Within the ethics and RRI section we also expect you to:

• include ethical and safeguarding considerations related to the inclusion of lived experience participants or partners. This should include identified ethical or safeguarding risks and plans to mitigate against them

If you are collecting or using data you should identify:

• any legal and ethical considerations of collecting, releasing or storing the data including consent, confidentiality, anonymisation, security and other ethical considerations and, in particular, strategies taken to not preclude further reuse of data
• formal information standards with which study will be compliant

Section: research involving human participation

Question: will the project involve the use of human subjects or their personal information?

If not, enter ‘N/A’ into the text box, mark this section as complete and move on to the next section.

If you are proposing research that requires the involvement of humans subjects, provide the name of any required approving body and whether approval is already in place. Then, justify the number and the diversity of the participants involved, as well as any procedures.

Provide details of any areas of substantial or moderate severity of impact.

Section: references

Question: List the references you’ve use to support your application.

Ensure your application is a self-contained description. You can provide hyperlinks to relevant publications or online resources. However, assessors are not obliged to access the information they lead to or consider it in their assessment of your application.

You must not include links to web resources in order to extend your application. If linking to web resources, to ensure the information’s integrity is maintained include, where possible, persistent identifiers such as digital object identifiers.

Word count:1,000

Section: resources and cost justification

Question: What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?

Download the FEC template (DOCX, 96KB) , complete it and then upload it as explained.

Using the text box, demonstrate how the resources you anticipate needing for your proposed work:

• are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified
• represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes
• maximise potential outcomes and impacts

This section should not simply be a list of the resources requested, as this will already be given in the detailed ‘costs’ table. Costings should be justified on the basis of  FEC  of the project, not just on the costs expected from UKRI. For some items we do not expect you to justify the monetary value, rather the type of resource, such as amount of time or type of staff requested.

Where you do not provide adequate justification for a resource, we may deduct it from any funding awarded.

You should identify:

• support for activities to either increase impact, for public engagement, knowledge exchange or to support responsible innovation
• support for access to facilities, infrastructure or procurement of equipment
• support for preserving, long-term storage, or sharing of data
• support for mentorship, if appropriate to the application
• support from partner organisations and how that enhances value for money
• support for inclusion of lived experience and community partners in the proposed work
• the combined costs for co-investigators not based at eligible research organisations. This should be a minimum 10% FEC of the grant. If less than 10%, how equitable partnerships outside of academia are included in the proposed work should be clearly articulated in the ‘approach’ section

How we will assess your application

Assessment process.

We will assess your application using the following process.

Peer review

Your application will be assessed by reviewers from academia and people with lived experience.

We will invite expert reviews from two academics and two people with lived experience. The reviewers will be asked to assess your application against the specified criteria for this opportunity.

Moderation panel

Following peer review, we will invite experts to consider and reach a final agreement on the grading and ranking of proposals and where necessary, to agree broad feedback for applicants. The ranking of proposals is based on the reports of the academic and lived experience peer reviewers on the overall research quality of the proposal and the principal investigator’s response to their comments. After which, the panel will make a funding recommendation.

Portfolio balancing

This funding opportunity is intended to offer a coordinated UK-wide investment, with a spread of collaborative grants funded across locations, disciplines, community asset types, and approaches. The panel will be empowered to recommend the strongest overall portfolio of proposals that provide the greatest added value. A sub-panel may be convened to consider the applications deemed fundable by the full moderation panel and may decide on the final portfolio of applications to be funded.

Principles of assessment

We support the San Francisco declaration on research assessment  and recognise the relationship between research assessment and research integrity.

Find out about the UKRI principles of assessment and decision making .

We reserve the right to modify the assessment process as needed.

Assessment criteria

Here is a sample set of expert review guidance. While the content is not the same as what is asked of the applicant, it should directly reflect it.

What we are looking for

Lived experience reviewers will provide comments on the first two sections, ‘vision’  and ‘co-creation and lived experience’. Lived experience reviewers will receive additional support and guidance from AHRC about how to complete their reviews. Academic peer reviewers will provide comments on all sections.

Have the applicants demonstrated how the work they are proposing:

• will impact world-leading research, society, the economy or the environment
• impacts upon health inequalities to benefit a community and delivers against all the programme objectives
• has included equitable co-creation and co-production with community partners and people with lived experience and identified any barriers to access for those participants

Have the applicants demonstrated that they have designed their approach so that it:

• is effective and appropriate to achieve their objectives
• describes how their, and if applicable their team’s, research environment (in terms of the place, its location and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the proposed work
• demonstrates how equality, diversity and inclusion has been integrated into all stages of the research planning and delivery

Section: applicant and team capability to deliver

Have the applicants provided evidence of how they, and if relevant their team, have:

• the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and their approach to develop others

Section: resources and cost justification

Have the applicants demonstrated how the resources they anticipate needing for their proposed work:

Section: ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI)

Have the applicants identified and evaluated the relevant ethical and responsible research and innovation considerations, and how they will be managed.

Contact details

Get help with your application.

For help on costings and writing your application, contact your research office. Allow enough time for your organisation’s submission process.

Ask about this funding opportunity

Email: [email protected] We aim to respond to emails within two working days.

Phone: 01793 547490

Our phone lines are open:

• Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 5:00pm UK time
• Friday 8:30am to 4:30pm UK time

Additional info

Webinar for potential applicants.

We held a webinar on 10 May 2023 at 12:00pm to 1:30pm. This provided more information about the opportunity and offered a chance to ask questions.

Watch a recording of the webinar.

Webinar time stamps

01:15 Presentation from Professor Helen Chatterjee (Programme Director)

12:03 Presentation from Catherine Gilmore (AHRC)

26:10 Q&A

Supporting documents

Equality impact assessment (PDF, 215KB)

• 13 September 2023 The number of academics doing the peer review of your application has changed from three to two. See 'How we will assess your application' section.

This is the website for UKRI: our seven research councils, Research England and Innovate UK. Let us know if you have feedback or would like to help improve our online products and services .

Graduate Research Funding

The Center for the Study of Inequality (CSI) invites proposals for grants from Cornell University graduate students that will support original social scientific research on inequality. Proposals will be judged on intellectual merit and potential for scholarly contributions.

The Center for the Study of Inequality's (CSI) goal is to foster social scientific research into the patterns, causes, and consequences of inequalities in all kinds of social and economic outcomes, including educational opportunities and outcomes, economic outcomes (e.g., wages, income, wealth), working conditions, status, prestige, political power, authority, health, and other valued “goods.” Inequalities may be patterned by race or ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, family background, immigration status, age, neighborhood, school, current family structure, organization or firm, occupation, industry, geographic location, region, or political units. Research can take many forms, including qualitative, quantitative, “mixed”, experimental or quasi-experimental, computational or data scientific, or comparative/historical. Proposals should be consistent with this mission.

The deadline for the 2024-25 grants is March 29, 2024.

Please  email us  with any inquiries.

Seed Grant RFP

How large are the awards.

Not to exceed $1000. Proposals that include hiring and training undergraduate research assistants are eligible for a “top up” of up to $500, for a maximum of $1500. The total resources allocated to the program is about $5,000.

What is the Proposal Deadline?

March 29, 2024. Awards will be announced in May, and the funds will be available as soon as we can process the paperwork.

What Activities are Supported?

Grants may support specialized research materials, Cornell undergraduate research assistance, incentives for experimental subjects, travel to and from research sites (as a supplement to travel funds provided by the Graduate School or individual departments/fields), and other direct expenses of data collection and analysis. Requests for specialized software or data purchases should be directed toward CCSS first.

Note that if you intend to apply for funds to pay for the labor of RAs, experimental subjects, or online survey participants (e.g., through M-Turk), you should budget for at least $18/hour or the equivalent.

Grants cannot be used to cover travel to conferences or workshops to present the results of research (see Graduate School conference travel grants); software or hardware purchases; academic year or summer stipends; health care or related benefits; student fees; publication fees; payments of any kind to Cornell faculty or staff; or payments to external faculty, staff, or student collaborators.

If you have a question about whether a specific expense is allowable, please contact CSI.

Who Can Apply?

We welcome proposals from graduate student affiliates of CSI at any stage of their training, and who are enrolled in any social science Field at Cornell. However, in allocating the funds, we will give priority to strong proposals from graduate students who have taken Soc 5190 and/or demonstrated a commitment to CSI’s intellectual community (e.g., by attending events). Because funding for the program comes from CAS, we will also prioritize students in social science fields that are primarily based in this college.

Graduate students who have received small grants in the past are welcome to apply for support for a different project. All else equal, though, we will prioritize first‐time applicants.

Proposals to conduct research in collaboration with other Cornell graduate students are welcome, although the $1000 award cap per project still applies. Proposals to conduct collaborative research with Cornell faculty or with scholars outside of Cornell should demonstrate that the graduate student is taking the lead intellectual role on the project, not acting (implicitly or explicitly) as the senior or external scholar’s RA.

What Strings are Attached?

All funds must be used within one year of the award date. Recipients will need to

(1) submit a brief, final report on the use of the funds and the outcome of the research, and (2) acknowledge CSI support in presentations or publications off the project.

How to Submit a Proposal

Proposals should include the following:

1) Cover letter with the name of applicant, netid, field of study, faculty advisor, anticipated graduation date, and a brief (1-2 sentence) overview of the proposal. If this proposal is for a collaborative project, include the names and academic affiliations of all collaborators. 2) Title, description of research, objectives, planned activities, and expected outputs. The research objectives should identify the core contributions of the proposed project relative to the existing literature on inequality, and the description of the design should be specific and detailed enough that we can have confidence that the project will in fact yield knowledge about the research question. (This does not, of course, mean that the you must show that the analysis will yield the expected results or confirm a hypothesis!) 3) A budget with an itemized list of, and brief justification for, expenses. 4) A timeline for the research. 5) Plans for follow‐up research and, if relevant, external funding proposals. 6) Any internal Cornell funding that has been awarded, e.g. CCSS, CSES, CPC, etc. 7) A Curriculum Vitae.

Not including the CV, the proposal should not exceed 1700 words. IRB approval (or evidence of exemption) is not required before you apply, but if your project involves human subjects, you will need to secure IRB approval before we can release the funds.

Please email the proposal in one document (.pdf or .docx) to John Niederbuhl [email protected] by March 29, 2024.

Funded Projects

Maame Boatemaa, City and Regional Planning This is not my home: Place Attachment and Urbanization in Kumasi

Trevor Brown, Government Political Construction of the U.S.’s Highly Unequal Health Care Workforce, Structured Along Race, Class, and Gender Lines, Through a Historical Lens

Nan Feng, Sociology The Relationship Between Income Inequality and Social Capital Over the Past Half-Century

Wonjeong Jeong and Cody Reed, Sociology ‘Living Gender’: Examining the Gendered Allocation of Household Space

Hyo Joo Lee, Sociology "Local Childcare Availability and Maternal Employment: A Case Study of South Korea"

Hao Liang, Sociology Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Ethnic Minority (re)Distribution in Metropolitan Area in Japan from 2000 to 2020

Carlos Lopez-Ortiz, City and Regional Planning Moving Up or Down the Ladder? Disentangling the Effects of Slum Upgrading on Social Mobility in Global South Cities

Alexandra Cooperstock, Sociology Place-Based Education Investment: Promise Neighborhoods and Student Academic Outcomes

Jacqueline Ho, Sociology Can Every School be a Good School? Decoding the cultural context of school choice in Singapore

Joseph Lasky, Government Mapping Patterns of Dispute Resolution: Exploring the Determinants of Forum Shopping in Togo and Benin

Vincent Mauro, Government The Politics of Social Policy Formulation

Colten Meisner, Communication Digital Labor at the Margins: Algorithmic Discrimination in the Platform Economy

Tianyao Qu, Sociology Gender Presentation and Emotional Consumption: The Negotiation of Gender Relations in Chinese Affective Live-stream Economy

Juhwan Seo, Sociology Performing Racial Authenticity? Employment Stratification at Suburban Ethnic Community Restaurants

Katherine Zaslavsky, Sociology An Experimental Approach to Race, Immigration, and Inequality

Karina Acosta, City and Regional Planning A Spatial Inequality Breakdown of Child Poverty in Colombia

Neelanjan Datta and Germán Reyes, Economics The Effect of Government Social Programs on Perceptions of Inequality

Erin McCauley, Sociology Stigma by Association: An Experimental Evaluation of Parental  Incarceration and Teacher’s Evaluation of Students and their Work

Yoselinda Mendoza, Sociology Housing Precarity Among Mixed-status Latina/o Immigrant Families

Emily Parker, Policy Analysis and Management Health Without Wealth: How Federally Qualified Health Centers Address Socioeconomic Inequality

Mikaela Spruill and Stephanie Tepper, Psychology Increasing Support for Reparations: The Role of Framing, Stereotype Endorsement, and Structural Beliefs about Inequality

Phoebe Strom, ILR Catfight or Contention? Gender Bias and Third-Party Perceptions of Organizational Conflict

David De Micheli, Government  Racial Reclassification, Education Reform, and Political Identity Formation in Brazil

Yuqi Lu, Sociology Spatially Concentrated Disadvantage in the Form of Unequal Access to Neighborhood Resources, Amenities and Services: Evidence from Google Maps Data

Vincent Mauro, Government The Effects of Party System Strength on Redistribution in Sub-national Brazil

Meaghan Mingo, Sociology Race and Decision-Making in School Discipline

Mario Molina, Sociology The Co-Evolution of In-group Favoritism and Group Structure

Benjamin Ruisch, Psychology Learning prejudice: How asymmetries in associative learning shape racial prejudice

Shruti Sannon, Communication Privacy and Power in Digital Labor Markets

Bridget Brew, Policy Analysis and Management & Sociology Corrections Officers’ Views and Decision-Making Processes

Kayla Burd, Law, Psychology, and Human Development and Michael Creim, Human Development Criminal Caricature: A Survey of Crimes Stereotypes

Youjin Chung, Development Sociology  Sweet Deal, Bitter Landscapes: Gender, Power, and the New Enclosures in Coastal Tanzania

Megan Doherty Bea, Sociology  Socio-spatial Analysis of Payday Lenders within Changing Contexts of Residential Segregation in the United States

Theresa Rocha Beardall, Sociology  Police Contracts, Community Contestation, and Legal Authority in Urban Spaces

Delphia Shanks-Booth, Government Information vs. Ideology: Recognizing (Government) Benefits in the Submerged State

Michael Allen, David De Micheli, and Whitney Taylor, Government Who Supports Redistribution? Group Norms, Private Preferences, and Social Desirability

Mauricio Bucca and Mario Molina, Sociology Legitimation or Differential Perception? An Experimental Approach to the Study of Beliefs about Inequality

Alex Currit, Sociology Social Environment, Activity Spaces, and Health Inequality

Sebastian Dettman, Government Citizens in Context: Participation, Citizenship and Local Inequality in Urban Indonesia

Allison Dwyer Emory, Sociology/Policy Analysis and Management Family Experiences of Pretrial Incarceration (with support from the ISS Mass Incarceration Project)

Yuanyuan Liu, Sociology Gender Differences in Endogenous and Exogenous Peer Effects on Academic Achievement: A Network Approach

Kyle Albert, Sociology Professionalization or Profits? Examining the Rapid Growth and Labor Market Value of Occupational Certification Programs in the United States

Rachel Behler, Sociology ‘Locating’ HIV Risk Behaviors: Examining the Role of Individual-Organization Affiliation Networks in HIV Transmission

Justine Lindemann, Development Sociology Reimagining the City: Race, Food, and the Production of Space

Tamara McGavock, Economics Crisis, Sibling Inequality, and Transfers as Compensation: Evidence from Indonesia

Paul Muniz, Sociology A Multi-level Model of Permanent Supportive Housing Retention in Los Angeles, CA

Mallory SoRelle, Government Consuming Citizenship: The Political Development and Consequences of US Consumer Financial Protection Policy

Martha Anna Wilfahrt, Government The Politics of Social Service Delivery in Rural Senegal, 1880-2012

Hilary Holbrow, Sociology Shall I Stay or Shall I Go? Local Institutional Determinants of Immigrant Integration

Ankita Patnaik, Economics Making Leave Easier: Better Compensation & Daddy-Only Entitlements

Emily S. Taylor Poppe, Sociology Going it Alone: Legal Mobilization and Efficacy in the Foreclosure Crisis

Daniel DellaPosta, Sociology Differentiating the Effects of Status and In-Group Preference in Social Exchange: A Laboratory Experiment

Alicia Eads, Sociology A Threat to the System: Political Responses to Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party

Emily S. Taylor Poppe, Sociology Client Attributes and Legal Outcomes: How Race and Gender Impact Lawyers’ Actions

Kyle Siler, Sociology Influences of Luck on Subsequent Decision-Making in Online Poker

Carlo Lutz, Sociology & Inequality Rwandan Miracle- The Role of Top-Down Leadership in Development

Joyce Main, Learning, Teaching, & Social Policy Graduate Student- Faculty Advisor Relationships: Does Gender Match Matter for Student Educational and Employment Outcomes

Emily Rosenzweig, Social Psychology Implicit Gender Identity and its Behavioral Implications

Emily Hoagland, Sociology The Effects of Organizational Support on the Perception of Women Political Candidates

Christin Munsch, Sociology Talking to Men about Masculinity: A Qualitative Examination of Masculinity and Compensation

Emily Hoagland, Sociology Supporting Women Candidates: The Effects of Fundraising Organizations on the Political Success of Women

In Paik, Sociology Developing a Diverse Academy: Examining Women and People of Color in the Ph.D Pipeline

Jared Peifer, Sociology Religion in the Financial Market: The Case of Religious Mutual Funds

Chris Yenkey, Sociology Financial Illiteracy as a Contributor to Wealth Inequality in Developing Countries: A micro-level analysis of shareholding on the Nairobi Stock Exchange

2007-2008 (In partnership with the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center)

Nicolas Eilbaum, Sociology Undocumented Immigrants in New York City: Hope and Fear

Jennifer Lauture, Sociology Never-Married Black Women: The Roles of Social Distance and Racial Exclusion

Bartolo Ligouri, Sociology High Stakes Tests and Teacher Resistance: New York City Schools in an Era of Increased Accountability

Catherine Taylor, Sociology Stress, Status, and Gender in Decision-Making Groups

Jennifer Todd, Sociology Under Pressure: Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement in the Era of School Accountability

Yujun Wang, Sociology and Michael Genkin, Sociology Understanding Onomastic Mechanisms in Immigrant Assimilation

2006-2007 (In partnership with the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center)

Youngjoo Cha, Sociology The Increase in Gender Earnings Inequality among Professional and Managerial Workers and the Gendered Norm of Overworking

Diana Hernandez, Sociology Living in Paradox: Low Income Families, Home and Neighborhood Challenges and (Non)Participation in the Legal System

Li Ma, Sociology Social Inequality during the Deinstitutionalization of Hukou in China

Christin Munsch, Sociology Campus Climate Survey

Catherine Taylor, Sociology Stress, Gender, and Numerical Minority in Goal Oriented Groups

Sarah Thebaud, Sociology Institutions, interactions and entrepreneurship: A cross-national study of gender inequality in venture creation

Chris Yenkey, Sociology Jeri Grows up Fast: An Ethnographic Account of Emerging Stratification in Rural Brazil

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Policy Research Programme - Health Inequalities

Published: 22 August 2022

Version: 2.0 September 2022

The following sets out the definition of health inequalities and the new strategic focus on health inequalities within NIHR Policy Research Programme .

How do we define health inequalities and what is the problem?

Health inequalities are avoidable and unfair differences in health status between groups of people or communities. Our health is determined by our genetics, lifestyle, the health care we receive, and the impact of wider determinants, such as our physical, social and economic environments, education and employment 1 . Health inequalities are a major government and research priority, but although we are seeing advances in health and care, health inequalities persist 2 .

What is PRP’s ambition?

In 2021, the publication  'Best Research for Best Health: The Next Chapter' reaffirmed NIHR's commitment to tackling health inequalities and their wider determinants. The NIHR Policy Research Programme  (PRP) will now ask all applicants to consider whether, and how, their research can contribute to this commitment. This will include identifying opportunities to incorporate health inequalities elements or themes, as well as considering how the research findings could impact health inequalities. Where appropriate for the research design, it will also include collecting data related to the equity-relevant variables detailed below. Through these means, we hope to achieve our goal of collecting specific information about proposals submitted to the programme that will allow for categorisation of health inequalities research, curation of data to aid future health inequalities research, and enable policymakers to better understand the implications of health inequalities within their policy areas.

A majority of the research funded by the NIHR PRP contains elements of health inequalities, but this is often not explicitly acknowledged and the research findings aren’t assessed through a health inequalities lens. Although we are not asking applicants to change the focus of all research to health inequalities, we are asking for an acknowledgement that health inequalities may play a role, and consideration of this when assessing the findings. Full details on this request are included in each of the  research specifications and the  guidance for applicants for the current PRP funding round.

The Request

We are asking researchers to clearly identify in the research design section of all NIHR PRP applications whether or not your application has a health inequalities component or relevance to health inequalities, and to detail the core set of health inequalities breakdowns that will be reported. We understand that research projects have different methodologies and focus on different populations, so we will ask researchers to explain what data will be collected and reported for the methodology they plan to use. If a health inequalities component is not included, we ask that researchers explain why this does not fit within their proposed research. This should only take a few sentences.

For quantitative research we would ideally like researchers to provide one-way breakdowns of their main outcome(s) by the following equity-relevant variables: age, sex, gender, disability, region, 5 ONS Ethnic groups, and the 5 IMD quintile groups. If more detailed cross tabulations are appropriate, please include these. This table should be submitted to NIHR PRP at the end of the project. Due to data limitations, judgement may be necessary about which breakdowns to report and whether to merge categories to increase counts in particular cells; we ask you to make these judgements yourself, bearing in mind our data curation aim of enabling future evidence synthesis work in pooling results from different studies. More details and an example table can be found in Appendix A of the relevant research specification.

For qualitative research projects, this can be simply giving the number of observations against the various variables.

This is a new request from the NIHR PRP and we will be continuing to monitor queries and adapt the process as needed. If you have any feedback on this new request, please contact us at [email protected] .

Health Inequalities in NIHR PRP Research Virtual Q&A Webinar

We hosted a webinar event on Monday, 26 September from 11am - 12pm to explain this request and to answer questions from potential applicants. Please find a recording of the webinar .

 1. Public Health England:  Reducing Health Inequalities: System, Scale and Sustainability

 2. Public Health England:  Health Profile for England 2010 - inequalities in health

Announcing the 2024 Scholars and Mentors for the Towards 2044: Horowitz Early Career Scholar Program

SRCD is pleased to announce the 2024 cohort for the Towards 2044: Horowitz Early Career Scholar Program ! 

The Frances Degan Horowitz Millennium Scholars Program (MSP) was developed in 1999 as a vehicle to encourage and support scholars from under-represented ethnic/racial groups from North America in pursuing graduate work in developmental science. In 2020, the Wallace Foundation provided funding to SRCD to strengthen the program, extending it from mentorship specifically at the SRCD Biennial to a year-long program. The new name for the extended program is now the Towards 2044: Horowitz Early Career Scholar Program. This mentorship opportunity takes its name from the year when the adult population of the United States is estimated to become a diverse majority. 

The Towards 2044: Horowitz Early Career Scholar Program will provide educational and professional development for scholars from underrepresented groups, giving them a launching point for a career in the field of child development with the guidance and mentorship from more advanced scholars. The selected scholars and mentors will meet in Washington, DC to kickstart the program, and then participate in a series of monthly virtual seminars and one-on-one mentor/mentee meetings through December 2024. These experiences will enable the rising scholars to gain valuable exposure to the field and allow them to network not only with their mentors, but also with other scholars and professionals. 

The program is led by the Advisory Committee including Dr. Michael Cunningham (Tulane University) Dr. Mayra Bámaca (University of California, Merced) and Dr. Charissa Cheah (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) and is supported through generous funding from the Wallace Foundation.  

Please join us in welcoming this year’s Towards 2044: Horowitz Early Career Scholar Program cohort of Scholars and mentors! 

Krystal Alvarez-Hernandez

Krystal Alvarez-Hernandez is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Psychological Science from California State University San Marcos in 2022 and was awarded the Predoctoral Ford Foundation Fellowship in 2023. 

Raised as the eldest daughter of hard-working immigrants, Krystal grew up as a proud bilingual and bicultural Mexican American. At the age of 17, she became a mother, an experience that has profoundly influenced her interests and goals as a developmental scientist. She aims to examine the role of societal stressors (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic) on maternal adaptive processes related to pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing, and their children’s early cognitive trajectories, particularly within Latino communities. She hopes that this research will contribute towards alleviating early inequalities linked to the social determinants of health that Latino mothers and their children face in the United States.

Truc Do is a first-year Developmental Science Ph.D. student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has been a graduate research assistant in the Self-regulation, Emotions, and Early Development (SEED) Lab, working on a Technology Development Fund project that aims to detect early childhood psychopathology from a tablet-based game. Prior to starting her PhD program, Truc received a Master of Science in Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology degree from Birkbeck, University of London where she was awarded a Kenway Legacy Scholarship. She later worked as a teaching assistant for children with autism in primary schools in London. She also earned a Master of Science in Psychology degree from the University of Essex (UK) where she was a recipient of the Woman of the Future Scholarship. Truc hopes to become a research scientist in the fields of developmental psychopathology and early childhood mental health. She is particularly interested in utilizing wearable technologies to shed light on emotion dysregulation issues such as temper tantrums in children with and without autism, especially from a cross-cultural perspective. 

Peter Dossen

Peter C. Dossen is an international student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He began his Ph.D. 2023 in the Human Sciences program specializing in Child Development/Early Childhood Education. Peter obtained his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from William V. S. Tubman University, Liberia, in 2016 and his Master of Arts in Child Development from the University of Haifa, Israel, in 2019. Peter's research interests revolve around the mechanism linking the association among the intergenerational transmission of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), attachment, parenting, children's mental health, social-emotional development, and academic achievement in a post-war country. He has worked as an instructor at William V. S. Tubman University's Department of Early Childhood and Primary Education and also as a Registered Nurse at the Rocktown Kunokudi Clinic, where he held various roles, including officer in charge (OIC), Maternal and Child Health Focal person, and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Clinician. His transition from clinical nursing practice to child development stemmed from witnessing the lack of educational opportunities for children in the clinic catchment communities where he was assigned. This experience ignited his passion for policy reform initiatives that promote a safe, stable, and nurturing environment where young children and their families can thrive. 

Joseph Green

Joseph (Joey) Green is a clinical psychology doctoral student at George Washington University. He earned his B.S. in Psychology from Arizona State University (ASU) in 2021. During his time at ASU, Joey worked on projects examining mental and behavioral health outcomes, their impact on biological processes (e.g., sleep), and interpersonal relationships that influence these outcomes (e.g., parenting) among LGB Latinx youth during periods of major transition (e.g., the transition to college). These experiences led to Joey’s current research interests in interpersonal relationships (e.g., parenting) and sociostructural contexts (e.g., policy/law, neighborhood/community) that influence LGBTQ+ youth health and development. His research interests draw on his work with the LGBTQ+ community during his time with the Trevor Project. In this role, he encountered many LGBTQ+ youth growing up in places and within contexts where support for their identity was lacking. He uses a development-in-context approach to examine these complex multisystem challenges and how they contribute to mental and behavioral health trajectories for LGBTQ+ youth.

Christina Griep

Christina Diaz Griep is a graduate student at the University of Houston in the Psychology (Developmental Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience) program. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Florida International University (FIU). During her time at FIU, she worked as a research assistant under the mentorship of Dr. Eliza Nelson, investigating the relationship between infant fine motor skills and vocabulary development. After graduation, she worked as a lab manager in the Adult Development and Decision Lab at the University of Central Florida under the mentorship of Dr. Nichole Lighthall where she worked on a project investigating the development of science learning. Currently she works with Dr. Hanako Yoshida in the Cognitive Development Lab investigating the early attentional mechanisms that underlie language development with infants from various cultural backgrounds and households that speak more than one language. Her current master thesis project aims to document early multimodal input structure by coupling head mounted eye trackers with network analysis. This will allow her to observe infants’ moment-to-moment gaze behaviors during parent-infant object play to investigate microstructures on parent verbal input during social contingent interactions. Beyond her research, she is a dedicated toddler mom, and enjoys traveling with her family.

Erica Karp, M.Ed., is a Ph.D. student in the clinical psychology program at Case Western Reserve University. Ms. Karp received her master’s degree in early childhood special education from Vanderbilt University and completed her undergraduate degree at Claremont McKenna College. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she worked in various research laboratories at Northwestern University focused on neurodevelopmental disorders, cognition, and psychosis risk. Broadly Ms. Karp is interested in social-cognitive processes related to the development of psychosis and autism. More specifically, she is interested in the timing of social functioning difficulties and the subsequent impact on conversion risk in autistic individuals. Her current research projects are examining the utility of a social skills program for adolescents with serious mental illness and the feasibility of assessing psychosis risk in autistic individuals. 

Javier Omar

Javier Omar is originally from Miami, Florida, and the son of two Cuban immigrants. He is currently a doctoral candidate in Developmental and Psychological Sciences at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Prior to his time at Stanford, Javier taught secondary science in the San Antonio Independent School District. He received his BS in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and BA in Human Health from Emory University.  

His research leverages mixed methods, strengths-based, and community-based participatory approaches to examine the social-emotional and psychosocial development of culturally and linguistically diverse children. His current work is situated within the Stanford-San Francisco Unified School District Partnership. It broadly focuses on assessing emotion knowledge development across a diverse cohort of preschoolers and examining the role of teacher beliefs and biases on social-emotional learning practices and student outcomes. Additionally, he is currently involved in a multi-institution, community-driven project focused on developing and validating a measure of youth immigration-related stress, trauma, and strength, where he is leading a qualitative study to explore how caregivers and youth perceive the impact of immigration-related experiences on youth psychosocial development and mental health.    

Outside of research, Javier is passionate about mentorship and community-engaged work with first-generation, low-income and Latine communities. 

Crystal Thinzar

Crystal Ei Thinzar is an international and third-year clinical psychology Ph.D. student at UNC-Greensboro. Born and raised in Myanmar as a Chinese-Burmese individual, Crystal was exposed to different cultures and languages growing up. She naturally came to use different languages to express certain emotions and later realized that she communicates in ways that align with cultural values of the language that she was speaking in the moment, sparking her curiosity in how emotion and language may be interwoven. During her gap year working as a lab manager at UNC-Chapel Hill with Dr. Margaret Sheridan, she was first introduced to LENA ambulatory tool and became excited about studying everyday parent-child interactions. During her graduate studies with Dr. Megan Fields-Olivieri, she is focusing on characterizing dynamic parent-child emotion socialization and functional communication processes in daily life. Broadly, she is interested in the role of language in emotion regulation and identifying pathways to psychopathology with a focus on moment-to-moment parenting. An emerging research interest of hers is to explore everyday emotion-related language shifts as they relate to culturally salient parenting practices and child regulatory outcomes in bilingual immigrant families. Professionally, she is passionate about mentoring and raising mental health awareness in Asian community. 

Sharnel Vale-Jones

Sharnel Vale-Jones, Yaagál, is Lingít (Alaska Native) from Yakutat, Alaska, belonging to Kwaashk’IKwáan (Raven, Humpy Salmon) Dis hítdaxáyáxat (Moon house). She is also the daughter of Teikweidí (Eagle, Brown Bear) and granddaughter of the Kaagwaantaan (Eagle, Beaver). Sharnel holds an M.S. in Clinical Psychology and is currently a PhD candidate at University of Alaska Anchorage’s Clinical-Community Psychology program. Prior to her graduate program, Sharnel dedicated nine years of her career to serving Alaska Native people in various capacities at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, including networking, improvement science, rural energy efficiency, and tobacco prevention. As a Lingít/European American individual, Sharnel is passionate about merging the two perspectives and weaving Indigenous knowledge into Western scholarship. She firmly believes engaging in culturally responsive research is crucial for decolonizing knowledge production. Sharnel's research interests lie in intergenerational trauma and resiliency strategies for Alaska Native (AN) and Indigenous people. Her dissertation aims to explore culturally relevant resilience strategies in Yaakwdáat Lingít (Yakutat Tlingit) child-rearing. In particular, this study seeks to understand family-level resilience through adaptive processes such as family connectedness, belief systems, organizational patterns, communication, and problem-solving, asking the question: How do Yaakwdáat Lingít people perceive child-rearing practices contributing to resilience?

Jerny Walls

Jerny Walls is a doctoral student in the Educational Psychology department, specifically the Developmental Sciences division at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Jerny received her Bachelor of Science degree in Learning and Education Studies with a concentration in Educational Equality and Cultural Understanding from UIUC in 2022. During their undergraduate studies, Jerny joined the Gracia Lab, led by Dr. Nidia Ruedas-Gracia, which focuses on researching sense of belonging. From her experiences in this lab, Jerny became interested in identity belonging. Jerny continues their work in the Gracia Lab as a doctoral student. She is currently interested in the impact of public schools on intersectional identity belonging development, particularly with the experiences of Black girls. Jerny utilizes art-based storytelling methodologies, such as portraiture and photovoice to help guide their research studies. The goal of her research is to collaborate with public schools in order to develop programming and curriculum that supports the intersectional identities of their students in order to improve their sense of belonging to their various identities. Outside of their academics, Jerny enjoys volunteering in her local community, going for nature walks with friends, collecting earrings, and teaching her pet bunny, Choppa, new tricks. 

Riana Anderson

Dr. Riana Elyse Anderson is a Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University and on leave as an Associate Professor at Columbia University’s School of Social Work. She earned her PhD in Clinical and Community Psychology at the University of Virginia and completed a Clinical and Community Psychology Residency at Yale University's School of Medicine and a Fellowship in Applied Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. On the whole, Dr. Anderson aims to facilitate healing in Black families with practical applications of her research and clinical services, as well as through public engagement, teaching, mentorship, and policy recommendations. Dr. Anderson uses mixed methods to study discrimination and racial socialization in Black families and apply her findings to help families reduce their racial stress. She is particularly interested in how family-based interventions help to improve Black youth’s psychosocial well-being and health-related behaviors. Dr. Anderson is the developer and director of the EMBRace (Engaging, Managing, and Bonding through Race) intervention and CEO and Founder of RACE Space Inc., and loves to translate her work for a variety of audiences, particularly those whom she serves in the community, via blogs, video, and literary articles. Additionally, for her early career accomplishments, Dr. Anderson has been the recipient of over twenty awards, including national awards from SRA, SRCD, APS, and FABBS. Finally, Dr. Anderson was born in, raised for, and returned to Detroit and is becoming increasingly addicted to cake pops. 

Stephen Chen

Dr. Stephen Chen is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Wellesley College. He completed his PhD in Clinical Psychology from UC Berkeley and his clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF. As director of the Culture and Family Development Lab, Dr. Chen's research examines how culture and family processes influence mental health and development across the lifespan. His current research projects examine (1) how Asian American parents and adolescents navigate issues of race, social status, and success, and (2) the interplay between multilingualism and emotion in the family context. At Wellesley, Dr. Chen has taught courses in Asian American Psychology, Cultural Psychology, and Culture & Emotion. Within SRCD, Dr. Chen currently serves on the Asian Caucus Steering Committee, and has served on SRCD’s Teaching Committee and the Program Committee for the SRCD Anti-Racist Summit. 

Melissa Delgado

Dr. Melissa Y. Delgado (she/her/ella), Ph.D. is a second-generation immigrant from the Arizona borderlands, where she now resides and is entering empty nesting with her husband and mother as her second of two wonderful sons is entering college. Dr. Delgado is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Human Development and Family Science at the University of Arizona’s Norton School of Human Ecology. She also co-chairs the Latinx Youth and Families Research Initiative at the UA Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, and Families.  Dr. Delgado earned her Ph.D. in Family Studies and Human Development from Arizona State University and was a W. T. Grant Foundation post-doctoral fellow. Her research addresses health and well-being disparities among Latinx youth, using cultural-ecological models to examine sociocultural stressors like ethnic discrimination and economic hardship. Her work highlights both protective and vulnerability factors within Latinx youth and their contexts, such as families and schools, to identify prevention and intervention opportunities. Employing mixed methods, she provides nuanced insights into the contextual processes affecting Latinx adolescents. Dr. Delgado is the Past Chair of the SRCD Latinx Caucus, a member of the SRCD Ethnic and Racial Issues Committee, and recently completed her term as Chair of the Society for Research on Adolescence Publications Committee. She is also an incoming SRCD Federal Executive Branch Fellow at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. 

Perla Gámez

Dr. Perla B. Gámez is associate professor of psychology at Loyola University Chicago (LUC) and secretary for the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Latinx Caucus. She received a PhD from the University of Chicago and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dr. Gámez leads a program of research focused on the language and literacy development of Latino children from homes in which English is not the only or primary language spoken (also referred to as bilinguals, dual language learners, English learners). Her current research examines how variations in the features of language that Latino children are exposed to at home and in school impact their language and literacy skills (Spanish, English). Her research has been funded by the William T. Grant Foundation and the National Science Foundation. She also received a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship and an Institute for Education Sciences Dissertation Year Fellowship. Currently, her work is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As a result, she has been honored by a Master Researcher Award at LUC. Dr. Gámez’s commitment to mentoring is evidenced by her NIH Academic Research Enhancement Award (R15) and participation as a mentor in the SRCD Horowitz Early Career Scholar Program. Her teaching and mentoring have earned her the Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence at LUC.

Nada Goodrum

Dr. Nada Goodrum is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. She received her B.A. in psychology and international studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Georgia State University. She completed her predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina. Her research investigates family- and community-level influences on youth well-being among families affected by major stressors. Her work currently centers on the impact of family stressors, such as trauma, HIV and other chronic illness, racism, financial strain, and parental substance use, on child health and parent-child relationships. She is interested in parents’ role in promoting child and adolescent health and preventing the intergenerational transmission of risk. The goal of her research is to promote health equity by using knowledge about risk and protective factors to guide the development of family-based, trauma-informed prevention and intervention efforts. Her research is primarily conducted among communities of color, and she strives to adopt a multicultural and social justice lens in her work. She is also a mother of two young children and enjoys coffee, baking, and houseplants.

Nneka Ibekwe-Okafor

Dr. Nneka Ibekwe-Okafor is an Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies, Early Childhood Education and Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research sits at the intersection of developmental science, early childhood education, and social policy. She investigates the social and environmental determinants of Black children’s early development by examining how poverty, racial discrimination, structural inequalities, and educational inequities influence access to quality early care and education and the developmental outcomes of Black children from birth to age eight. Her research has a particular focus on identifying protective factors across various ecological levels in efforts to promote the optimal developmental outcomes of Black children. Her goal is to inform social policies and practitioner-led interventions through the science of human development.  

Nneka received a Ph.D. in Human Development and Quantitative Methods from the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education, an Ed.M. from Harvard University in Prevention Science Research, and a M.S.W. from Columbia University. In her undergraduate studies, Nneka majored in African American Studies and Sociology and was a NCAA Division I volleyball player at the University of California, Davis. 

Dr. Alan Meca (él/he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology in the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He received his Ph.D. in Developmental Science from Florida International University in 2014 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Miami. Broadly, his expertise is in identity development, acculturation, cultural stress, and positive youth development. Although his research has focused generally on identity development, most of his work has been on cultural identity development and acculturation among ethnic/racial minoritized youth, particularly among Hispanic/Latinx populations. Towards this end, his research agenda has focused on identity development and cultural stressors and their effects on health risk behaviors, mental health, and educational achievement. In pursuit of this research agenda, he has published over 80 peer-reviewed manuscripts focused on personal, ethnic/racial, and national identity and on the cultural dynamics among Hispanic/Latinx families. Currently, his research agenda is focused on refining measures of cultural identity, understanding the processes that govern how ethnic/racial minoritized youth navigate their cultural environment (e.g., code-switching, cultural frame switching), and identifying ways we can support youth experiencing cultural stressors such as discrimination, bicultural stress, and negative context of reception. 

Jingjing Sun

Dr. Jingjing Sun is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Montana. Her research centers on supporting minoritized children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development with strengths-based approaches. Collaborating with community members and interdisciplinary colleagues in the U.S. and China, she investigates the impact of broader ecological systems, including culture, land, community, and tribal sovereignty, on children’s learning and social-emotional well-being. She also examines how to support teacher learning, well-being, and integration of discussion-based pedagogies through coaching and sustained professional development. Dr. Sun specializes in designing mixed-methods research to understand learning and development from different strands of data. Committed to supporting early-career scholars, she is excited to join the SRCD Towards 2044 program as a mentor again for the third year. 

Adriana Weisleder

Dr. Adriana Weisleder is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University. She completed a PhD in Psychology from Stanford University and a postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric primary care research at NYU School of Medicine. Her work investigates how children learn language across diverse sociocultural contexts, with a focus on Latine multilingual learners. In particular, her research aims to expand descriptions of early language development in children from immigrant and language minority homes by combining observational and experimental measures with community perspectives about what is normative language development. A key goal of this work is to contribute to building a more robust evidence base for understanding patterns of language development across diverse contexts, and to reduce inequities in access to culturally and linguistically responsive speech and language services. As a Costa Rican immigrant to the US, and a Spanish-English bilingual, she recognizes that immigrant communities are those most impacted by these issues and those who stand most to gain from this work. She uses community-based approaches to incorporate the views and priorities of minoritized communities, particularly Spanish-speaking Latine families. She is also strongly committed to mentoring the next generation of scholars. 

Chenyi Zhang

Dr. Chenyi Zhang is an associate professor of Early Childhood and Elementary Education at Georgia State University. His research explores contextual, cognitive, and emotional factors influencing children's early literacy development, as well as early childhood educators' professional growth. As an early interventionist, he designs and evaluates classroom-based literacy intervention programs that support young children's literacy development and creates professional learning programs to enhance educators' teaching practices. 

He collaborates internationally with scholars from Asian countries, such as China and Japan, to study cross-cultural differences in early literacy development and literacy instruction. Currently, Zhang is researching how young children develop an interest in writing and exploring cultural differences in teachers' writing instruction between China and the U.S. He also leads a research team investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young children's and parents' stress levels in the U.S. and China. 

Zhang earned a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies with a focus on developmental studies from Purdue University in 2013, and an M.S. in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2008.

How COVID exposed the inequality in our health care system: ‘Now is the time of reckoning’

The coronavirus pandemic didn’t give rise to health inequities in the U.S. Rather, it revealed and exacerbated them.

That was the consensus of a panel at Fortune ’s Brainstorm Health conference in Dana Point, Calif., on Monday, just over a year after the federal COVID-19 public health emergency ended.

“It exposed the deep fissures within our health care system,” said Dr. Uché Blackstock, founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity . “Many of us knew what those fissures were, but I think to a more general audience, it exposed them in a way that [they] had never been exposed before.”

Jayasree Iyer, PhD, CEO of the Access to Medicine Foundation , echoed, “Health equity has been a chronic issue for time immemorial.”

Age, sex and gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and digital literacy are among the determinants of health equity , defined by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as “the attainment of the highest level of health for all people.” In the U.S. for example, COVID-19 morbidity and mortality were higher among Black, Hispanic, and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, noted a 2023 analysis in the Avicenna Journal of Medicine .

The silver lining? The pandemic woke people up to the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in medicine, according to Dr. Hala Borno, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and cofounder and CEO of Trial Library .

“It emboldened organizations to talk about DEI when they weren’t interested or [didn’t have] the bandwidth to do so before,” Borno said. “But I think now is the time of reckoning where they’re starting to define what it means and how they can consistently apply it within the organization.”

The HHS Healthy People 2030 campaign touts a strengthened focus on health equity and offers a toolkit for organizations to improve their own health and well-being. While such initiatives are well-intended, Iyer said not nearly enough action has been taken to ensure people facing disparities are getting care—particularly on a global scale.

“There’s still a lot of work to do,” Iyer said. “But it can be done, and there are fantastic models out there on how this can be done…it’s about scaling that up.” 

For more on health equity:

• Racism is rampant in health care and a new memoir reveals how deadly the consequences can be
• Companies serious about DEI should take a hard look at their health care benefits
• Addressing the social and racial barriers to health care equity
• The global health divide: Working to close the equity gap

Subscribe to Well Adjusted, our newsletter full of simple strategies to work smarter and live better, from the Fortune Well team. Sign up for free today.

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Mental Health & Wellbeing Pump-Priming 2024/25 Funding Call

Funding of up to £25,000 is now available to support research that crosses disciplinary boundaries and accelerates intervention discovery and development.

26 April 2024

UCL Grand Challenge of Mental Health & Wellbeing Pump-Priming Funding Call

Deadline for applications: Monday 3 June 2024, 17.00 (GMT).

UCL’s Grand Challenge of Mental Health & Wellbeing (GC MHW) welcomes applications for “pump-priming” funding of up to £25,000 per project to support research that crosses disciplinary boundaries and accelerates intervention discovery and development.  

The projects funded should represent impactful preliminary work that can lead to the development of a larger, externally funded project. Applications should be aligned with the key focus of GC MHW, which is accelerating intervention discovery or implementation. GC MHW defines intervention as any systematic effort to improve the mental health and/or wellbeing by focusing on individuals, groups of individuals, institutional/organisational structures, or societal/systemic issues. 

Conceptual, basic and applied work from different research traditions and disciplines are all critical for supporting more effective ways to promote wellbeing and mental health and are all within the remit of this call. UCL Grand Challenges uses ‘cross-disciplinarity’ to mean collaboration between experts in different fields that cuts across traditional subject areas. We see cross-disciplinary research as the effort to solve problems in an innovative way through the integration of skills and/or approaches from different disciplines. 

Applications should involve at least one early career researcher (PhD student, post-doctoral researcher, or faculty member/fellowship holder within eight years of PhD graduation or six years of their first academic appointment*). We strongly encourage applications from teams working across different UCL Faculties, and particularly welcome applications that focus on groups that are at increased risk of poor mental health. 

*These periods exclude any career break, for example, due to:

• family care
• health reasons
• reasons related to COVID-19, such as home schooling or increased teaching load.

Some possible focus areas below, as examples, but any topic within the remit of the GC MHW theme is welcome:

• Social changes and their mechanisms

This includes the study of mechanisms that operate when an individual’s or group’s behaviour changes for the better as a result of changes in social factors. For example, how do we get people to exercise more, what is the mechanism through which we achieve this, and what is the impact on mental health and wellbeing? Social changes, e.g., reducing inequality-related problems and their mechanisms, are also highly relevant here, as is research focusing on social/behavioural change as leverage for biological studies.

• Development of models of mental illness (and wellbeing)

These can be animal models or other instantiations (e.g. organoids, in silico models, models of social influence) that can be used to accelerate interventions and that offer mechanistic insights. Examples could include the genetic screening of druggable targets or the creation of credible animal models of specific symptoms, dysfunctional cognitions, or social and biological processes relevant to mental health (broadly construed). We encourage applicants to consider ethical, philosophical, and legal implications in relation to biological, neuroscientific, and cognitive approaches and to involve colleagues from relevant disciplines in the applications.

• Spaces that support mental health

Projects in this area could address how the built and natural environment and buildings support or hinder mental health or how digital spaces impact on mental wellbeing. Examples could include the impact of time spent in nature, the effects of different types of home or office space, digital engagement, or external urban environments. It will be important to consider design, architectural, geographical, or digital considerations, as well as data from e.g. psychological or neurosciences to understand the interplay between the environment and the individual.

Applications for projects/activities costing between £10,000 - £25,000 will be considered under this call. In total, up to 15 projects will be awarded. Funding must be spent by 31 July 2025 – any unspent funds will be returned to UCL Finance at the end of the grant. 

Salary costs for research assistant staff are eligible, but contributions towards salary costs for contracted UCL staff members are not. A brief report of all expenditures must be submitted, alongside as an impact report.

• Eligibility
• First applicants must be UCL staff – either researchers in academic Faculties or Professional Services. 
• Secondary Applicants can be UCL staff/PhD students and / or external partners. There is no limit to the number of secondary applicants, and we therefore strongly encourage involvement of more than one UCL department/faculty , as well as consideration of external partners were appropriate. Applications that only involve one UCL department/faculty are extremely unlikely to receive funding and must justify how they meet cross-disciplinary remit of the call.
• The team must comprise at least one early career researcher (PhD student, post-doctoral researcher, or faculty member/fellowship holder within eight years of PhD graduation or within six years of their first academic appointment). 

Full guidance and eligibility criteria can be downloaded here. 

• How to Apply

Read the full guidance and eligibility criteria for the call. In order to be eligible for funding, please complete a short application form and then submit your proposal using the online portal.

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The deadline for applications is Monday 3 June, 17.00 (GMT).

If you have any questions, or require the form in an alternative format, please email Siobhan Morris ( [email protected] ). 

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• v.12(9); 2022

Original research

Systematic review of the effectiveness of the health inequalities strategy in england between 1999 and 2010, ian holdroyd.

1 Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Alice Vodden

2 University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

Akash Srinivasan

3 Imperial College London Faculty of Medicine, South Kensington Campus, London, UK

4 Medical Library, School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Clare Bambra

5 Newcastle University Population Health Sciences Institute, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

John Alexander Ford

Associated data.

bmjopen-2022-063137supp001.pdf

Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study.

The purpose of this systematic review is to explore the effectiveness of the National Health Inequality Strategy, which was conducted in England between 1999 and 2010.

Three databases (Ovid Medline, Embase and PsycINFO) and grey literature were searched for articles published that reported on changes in inequalities in health outcomes in England over the implementation period. Articles published between January 1999 and November 2021 were included. Title and abstracts were screened according to an eligibility criteria. Data were extracted from eligible studies, and risk of bias was assessed using the Risk of Bias in Non-randomized Studies of Interventions tool.

The search strategy identified 10 311 unique studies, which were screened. 42 were reviewed in full text and 11 were included in the final review. Six studies contained data on inequalities of life expectancy or mortality, four on disease-specific mortality, three on infant mortality and three on morbidities. Early government reports suggested that inequalities in life expectancy and infant mortality had increased. However, later publications using more accurate data and more appropriate measures found that absolute and relative inequalities had decreased throughout the strategy period for both measures. Three of four studies found a narrowing of inequalities in all-cause mortality. Absolute inequalities in mortality due to cancer and cardiovascular disease decreased, but relative inequalities increased. There was a lack of change, or widening of inequalities in mental health, self-reported health, health-related quality of life and long-term conditions.

Conclusions

With respect to its aims, the strategy was broadly successful. Policymakers should take courage that progress on health inequalities is achievable with long-term, multiagency, cross-government action.

Trial registration number

This study was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42021285770).

Strengths and limitations of this study

• This is the first study to synthesise all published studies and grey literature on the health inequalities strategy conducted in England from 1999 to 2010.
• This study used a broad search strategy of peer-reviewed and grey literature.
• The retrospective nature of studies and lack of counterfactual means that causal claims as to the effect of the strategy cannot easily be made. This resulted in an increased risk of bias of studies.

Introduction

The pandemic has exacerbated societal health inequalities, with higher numbers of COVID-19 related cases and deaths in areas of higher socioeconomic disadvantage and among minority ethnic groups. 1 2 In England, the COVID-19 mortality rate for those under 65 was 3.7× greater in the most deprived 10% of local areas compared with the least deprived. Age-standardised COVID-19 mortality rates were more than twice as high in the most deprived 10% of areas compared with the least. 2

Knowledge of the existence of health inequalities is not new. The first major UK publication describing health inequalities was the Black report in 1980, although health inequalities had been described and debated in the academic literature for decades before that. It was not until 1997, with a newly elected government, that health inequalities became a policy priority. The government commissioned a health inequalities review, subsequently published in 1998 as the Acheson report, and committed itself to implement the evidence-based policy recommendations. 3 Subsequently, a wide-ranging national health inequalities strategy was implemented, with various strategies and aims updated over time. This was the first and most extensive international attempt to address health inequalities through a widespread programme of cross-government action.

Two national documents set out the health inequalities strategy. First, ‘Reducing health inequalities: an action report’ was published in 1999 in response to the Acheson report. It described a wide variety of policies designed to reduce health inequalities: both more ‘downstream’ initiatives, such as increased National Health Service (NHS) funding or the establishment of a National Institute for Clinical Excellence, and more ‘upstream’ policies, such as a national minimum wage, the new deal for employment and increased funding for schools, housing and transport. 4 Second, ‘Tackling health inequalities: a Program for Action’ was published in 2003. 5 It set out 82 cross-departmental commitments, along with 12 headline indicators of the key areas to be monitored. Again, these commitments included a range of ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ policies. Other studies have previously summarised the strategy. 6–8 The strategy involved a wide range of policy actions across different sectors. These included large increases in levels of public spending on a range of social programmes (such as the introduction of the Child Tax Credit; SureStart Children’s Centres), the introduction of the national minimum wage, area-based interventions such as the Health Action Zones and Neighbourhood Renewal funds and a substantial increase in expenditure on the NHS. The latter was targeted at more deprived neighbourhoods when, after 2001, a ‘health inequalities weighting’ was added to the way in which NHS funds were geographically distributed, so that areas of higher deprivation received more funds per head to reflect higher health need. 9

The programme for action included two national targets: (1) by 2010, to reduce by at least 10% the gap in infant mortality between routine and manual groups and the population as a whole and (2) by 2010, to reduce by at least 10% the gap between the fifth of areas with the lowest life expectancy at birth and the population as a whole. The ‘areas with the lowest life expectancy at birth and the population as a whole’ were defined by later documents as the ‘Spearhead areas’. 10–12 These 70 local authority areas were identified as being the worst performing local authorities associated with three or more of: male and female life expectancy at birth, cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality rates for the under 75s and Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 2004 scores. These targets were based on relative, rather than absolute, inequalities. 12 13 This is important as debate exists as to which of these is the most appropriate measure of inequality. 3 14 15 Absolute inequalities measure the numerical gap between groups, while relative inequalities measure the percentage difference between groups.

One major criticism of health inequalities research and policy is that there has been too much effort put into describing the problem, rather than finding solutions. The National Health Inequalities Strategy in England 1999–2010 provides a key international example of the latter. It is a high-profile international case study of long term multifaceted government action. Discussions to date of the effects of the strategy have been polarised, with some prominent commentators arguing that it failed, 8 while others have asserted that it was effective. 16 17 This is partly because early evaluations of this health inequalities strategy suggested that it had failed to reach its targets and that inequalities may have increased during this period. 8 10 16 18 However, subsequent research found that this period was associated with a reduction in health inequalities. 6 9 19–21 As governments around the world consider how to respond to inequalities compounded by the pandemic, here we present a systematic review of the studies assessing the effectiveness of this health inequalities strategy.

This systematic review was conducted in accordance with established methodology 22 and reported in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement. 23 This systematic review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021285770).

Search strategy and selection criteria

Three electronic databases (Ovid Medline, Ovid Embase and Ebsco PsycINFO) were systematically searched from January 1999 to November 2021. The search terms were based in part on previous literature, which identified key search terms to identify studies investigating inequality and inequity 24 and the UK. 25 Online supplemental table 1 presents the search terms. After removing duplicate records, abstracts and titles were screened according to the eligibility criteria by two researchers (IH and AS) using the software Rayyan by December 2021. Discrepancies were resolved by a third researcher (JAF). Each researcher cross screened 20% of the abstracts and titles of the other to ensure accuracy. Three conflicts arose, which were resolved after discussion. A detailed grey literature search of the UK Government Web Archives, specific websites (such as the King’s Fund) and a broad search using an internet search engine (Google) was used. Relevant citations of included studies were also screened.

Supplementary data

Inclusion criteria were:

• Studies assessing the impact of the health inequalities strategy in England between 1999 and 2010 on inequality in health outcomes in England.
• Any form of quantitative study.
• Studies reporting primary research.
• Studies in any language.

Exclusion criteria were:

• Studies whose methodology make it impossible to draw conclusions about the impact of the strategy.
• Studies that reported non-health inequalities.
• Earlier editions of included reports.

The full text of all articles screened as meeting the eligibility criteria or possibly meeting the criteria were reviewed. The following information was independently extracted from each study by two authors (IH and AV): first author, year of publication, aim, design, data sources, time period of analysis, population, health inequalities measured, main findings and risk of bias. The main outcomes of interest were absolute or relative changes in socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy and infant mortality in the population of England between 1999 and 2010 to reflect the aims of the strategy. All results compatible with each outcome domain were sought from each study. Secondary outcomes included changes to socioeconomic inequalities in mortality, comorbidities or self-reported health.

Quality assessment

Risk of bias was assessed at a study level using the Risk of Bias in Non-randomized Studies of Interventions (ROBINS-I) tool, which assesses the risk of bias across seven domains. One author (IH) undertook the risk of bias assessment, and this was double checked by a second author (AS or AV) with disagreements resolved by a third (JAF).

Patient and public involvement

Patients were not involved in the design or execution of this study. Nor were members of the public.

Due to the small number of studies with a large amount of data heterogeneity, it was deemed inappropriate to perform a meta-analysis. Instead, studies were synthesised narratively.

After removal of duplicates, the search identified 10 311 unique records. Forty-two were reviewed in full text, and 11 were included in the final review. A flow diagram of the screening and selection process can be found in figure 1 . Six studies contained data on inequalities of life expectancy or mortality, 6 7 9 10 12 19 three on disease-specific mortality, 10 12 26 three on infant mortality 10 13 21 and three on morbidities. 7 20 27 Six studies investigated geographical health inequalities, four investigated health inequalities at an individual level and one had statistics from both measures. Measures of socioeconomic status included income, living in a spearhead area, deprivation, occupation, social class and education. Data were collected between 1983 and 2017 ( table 1 ). Results from these papers are summarised in table 2 . Table 3 shows the risk of bias of each study across seven domains.

Study characteristics

ONS, Office for National Statistics.

Study findings

Risk of bias – ROBINS-I tool

NI, No Information; ROBINS-I, Risk of Bias in Non-randomized Studies of Interventions.

Study selection process.

Life expectancy, all-cause mortality and disease-specific mortality

Six studies reported data on life expectancy or mortality. Two earlier studies reported a widening of inequalities in life expectancy with one showing narrowing of mortality inequalities. The four more recent studies showed a narrowing of inequalities.

Two early government reports showed widening of life expectancy inequalities and mixed results for mortality inequalities. ‘Tackling Health Inequalities: 2007 Status Report on the Programme for Action’ used Office for National Statistics (ONS) data based on life estimates made using the 2006 census. It compared life expectancy in spearhead areas and the rest of the country. While life expectancy had increased for both spearhead and non-spearhead areas, absolute and relative inequalities between them had increased between 1995–1997 and 2004–2006. 10 The second reported ONS data up to and including 2010. 12 Compared with the 1995–1997 baseline, the absolute and relative gap in life expectancy between spearhead areas and England as a whole increased by 2008–2010.

Four later published studies found that inequalities had narrowed. The first study by Barr and colleagues 9 compared individuals living in the fifth most deprived areas to those living in the fifth least deprived areas. The authors found that inequalities of healthcare amenable mortality, defined as mortality from causes that would be prevented provided appropriate access to high-quality healthcare, narrowed between 2001 and 2011. Absolute inequalities for men and women fell with 85% of the change explained by redistributive resource allocation changes between areas. The relative gap narrowed for males and females. However, the authors found that absolute or relative inequalities of mortality not amenable to healthcare failed to change noticeably between 2001 and 2011. 9

The second study by Barr and colleagues 6 investigated geographical inequalities between 1983 and 2015 using ONS data based on the 2011 census, rather than 2006, which informed earlier government publications. They analysed trends in the absolute difference of life expectancy and mortality in the 20% most deprived local authorities compared with the rest of England. Supplementary analysis compared life expectancy in spearhead and non-spearhead areas. The authors identified breakpoints to account for the lag between implementation and outcomes. Both socioeconomic inequalities and inequalities between spearhead and non-spearhead areas in life expectancy for men and women statistically significantly increased year-on-year before the strategy and decreased during the time of the strategy, with no evidence that this decrease continued after the strategy. Relative socioeconomic inequalities in mortality fell year-on-year throughout the strategy for both men and women and increased before and after the strategy for men. Further analysis showed that the gap in life expectancy between spearhead areas and the rest of the country did not decrease until after 2005. Relative socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy widened before and after the strategy period and narrowed during it. The authors found that using population estimates using the 2006 census caused an artificial increase in life expectancy inequalities compared with 2011 estimates.

Hu and colleagues 7 compared data from the health survey for England to similar surveys done in other European countries. They investigated trends in inequalities of all-cause mortality between those with high (tertiary) education and the rest of the country. The gap narrowed more significantly in 2000–2010 compared with 1990–2000 in England.

While aforementioned studies, analysing differences between the most and least deprived areas, are important concerning the strategies aims, they fail to describe the change in the social gradient across the whole of the population. Buck and Maguire 19 examined the relationship between area-based income deprivation and life expectancy, comparing data from 1999 to 2003 to 2006–2010. The authors found improved life expectancy for all levels of deprivation but a greater improvement in more deprived areas. It was noted that both unemployment and older people’s deprivation played a particularly important role in determining differences in life expectancy between areas.

Three studies reported changes in inequalities in disease-specific mortality. Two government documents examined inequalities in mortality due to cancer between spearhead areas and England as a whole from 1995 to 1997 to 2006–2008 and 2008–2010 using ONS data. By 2006–2008, absolute inequalities fell, without a change in relative inequalities. 10 By 2010, the absolute gap had fallen further, with an increase in the relative gap. 12 Absolute inequalities in mortality due to circulatory disease decreased by 2006–2008, but relative inequalities widened. By 2008–2010, there was a further decrease in absolute but an increase in relative inequalities. Exarchakou and colleagues 26 reported inequalities of 1-year survival rate following a diagnosis of one of the 24 most common cancers between 1996 and 2013. They investigated the absolute difference between individuals living in the fifth most and fifth least deprived areas. The gap narrowed in only 6 of 20 cancers in men and 2 of 21 cancers in women and widened for three cancers (two in women and one in men). One final study examined inequalities in road accident causality in the fifth most deprived local authority districts areas compared with England as a whole. 10 The absolute gap decreased between 1998 and 2006.

Infant mortality

Three studies reported changes in the infant mortality rate. Initial reporting using ONS data from 2004 to 2006 found that inequalities had widened between routine plus manual groups and the population as a whole compared with the 1997–1999 baseline. 10 A later report found that by 2008–2010, inequalities had narrowed compared with the baseline. 13 Robinson and colleagues 21 calculated the infant mortality rate in 323 lower tier local authorities between 1983 and 2017 to investigate changes in inequalities between the 20% most deprived areas and the rest of the country. Absolute inequality increased year on year before the strategy and decreased during it. A non-significant increase was seen after the strategy ended. Relative inequalities marginally decreased during the time of the strategy, in contrast to an increase that was seen before and after the strategy period.

Morbidities

Three studies reported on morbidities using Health Survey of England data. Specifically, these studies investigated self-assessed health, health-related quality of life, mental health and long-term health. The Health Survey of England contains data collected from a nationally representative sample of those residing at private residential addresses and has been carried out since 1991. 28 Around 8000 adults and 2000 children take part in the survey each year.

Mixed results were found concerning self-reported health. Between 1996 and 2009, the probability of reporting bad or very bad health remained relatively constant for those in the highest social class but increased for those in lower social classes. 27 When comparing those with high and low education, there was no significant difference in inequality trends between 2000 and 2010 compared with 1990–2000. Additionally, there was no significant difference in the change of these trends between these periods compared with three European countries. 7 Costa Font and colleagues 20 measured inequalities in self-reported health using concentration indices, whereby a high result indicates more inequality. Equalised household income was used to measure inequality across the whole population. In contrast to the two aforementioned studies, they reported a fall in the concentration index between 1997 and 2007, indicating a reduction in inequality.

Health-related quality of life did not change between social classes from 1996 to 2008. 27 When assessed by a concentration index comparing different household incomes, inequalities of long-term health problems increased between 1997 and 2007. 20 There was no significant change in the trend of inequalities of long-term health problems by education in 2000–2010 compared with 1990–2000. Nor was there a significant difference in the change in trend in England compared with three European countries. 7 While mental health improved in all social classes between 1997 and 2009, it did so more for individuals in higher social classes. 27

Principle findings

There is evidence that the strategy met the infant mortality target, while the life expectancy target was reached for men but not women. Absolute health inequalities in life expectancy, mortality, infant mortality and multiple major causes of death reduced. Less evidence is available concerning relative inequalities. More recent data suggest that relative socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy and infant mortality narrowed. Relative inequalities of mortality narrowed between the fifth most deprived areas and the country as a whole, but not between the fifth most and fifth least deprived areas. The only data available on disease-specific conditions suggest an increase in relative inequalities. This may be due to a lack of newly published studies, using more recent census data and sampling from the later years of the strategy being available as it is for life expectancy and infant mortality. The difference may also be due to the statistical relationship whereby relative inequalities may increase as a result of a fall in absolute inequalities. 29 30 There was a lack of change or worsening of change for inequalities in mental health, health-related quality of life and long-term conditions. This lack of change or increased inequality for self-reported health measures may be due to multiple reasons. As all studies used the same survey, with data collected shortly after the 2008 financial crash, perceptions of economic security may have altered results. It may be that self-reported measures are more resilient to change. Alternatively, small changes in categorically assessed self-assessed measures may be less easily observed compared with life expectancy and infant mortality that are continuous measures. Health inequalities were found to have narrowed more consistently when measured between geographical areas rather than between individuals. This may be due to longer follow-up periods in many of the studies that were measured at a geographical level, extending beyond the immediate aftermath of the banking crises. Alternatively, it could have been caused by the redistributive resource allocation changes that occurred between areas. 9

Strengths and limitations

This is the first study to collate and synthesise all evidence of the first international attempt at a cross-government strategy to address health inequalities. We used an extensive search strategy with robust screening, data extraction and quality assessment processes. We included peer-reviewed articles and grey literature, including documents published at the time and identified through the UK government archives.

The main limitation is that the studies included are retrospective using either time-trend or before and after methods. All of the studies have a high risk of bias due to deviations from intended interventions. This was predominantly because of the lack of a robust counterfactual that makes it difficult to unpick the impact of the strategy against the impact of other factors, such as broad economic growth before the financial crash in 2008. These limitations are common to any attempt to assess the impact of national policy; however, considering the breadth and ambition of the strategy it is disappointing that more comprehensive evaluations or data are not available. The strategy’s wide-ranging nature does however allow many of these factors to be considered a part of it rather than as a confounding factor. For example, the large decrease in poverty rates, especially in children 31 and pensioners, 32 may both have contributed. Additionally, not every abstract was double screened. However, 40% of abstracts were cross checked to ensure consistency, and only three discrepancies arose, none of which were included in the review.

The included articles use different measures that make direct comparisons impossible, for example, comparing the most deprived areas to either the least deprived areas or the rest of the population and using individual-level measures of socio-economic status (eg, occupation) or area-based measures (eg, IMD). Morbidity data are based on self-reported measures within a nationally representative survey, rather than chronic disease registers.

As indicated by guidance, absolute and relative inequalities were included. 14 33 This aligns with existing guidance and debate both from those who argue that absolute inequalities are the more important measure for policymakers 3 and others who support the idea that relative inequalities are also of significant importance. 34

What this research means

A lack of progress on health inequalities, despite policy priority, can lead to a sense of fatalism and powerlessness to effect change. These findings are therefore important because they show that with sustained cross-government action, progress on health inequalities is possible. It is particularly encouraging that improvements were made in both of the areas that the strategy predominantly set out to improve: inequalities in life expectancy and infant mortality.

These results are even more encouraging when considering that they came from a strategy that was far from perfect. Critics have noted various points about the strategy, for example, that it was insufficiently based on reliable evidence, 8 18 35 36 flawed in delivery, 8 16 18 insufficiently focused on the wider determinants of health 16 34 37 and that efforts may not have been large enough. 8 34 38

Earlier findings consistently showed no improvement in life expectancy inequalities, yet later results were more positive. This may be due to a lag period between the implementation of the strategy of interventions and changes in health outcomes. Certain initiatives would take considerably longer to impact inequalities in life expectancy, such as reducing childhood poverty, compared with more downstream factors, such as blood pressure control. Alternatively, it may be due to more accurate and up-to-date data, such as the 2011 census. Importantly, this shows that sufficient time is needed between implementation and measuring outcomes.

Implications for policy and research

Governments around the world are taking steps to address health inequalities, particularly in light of the growing evidence of an unequal pandemic. 39 For example, the UK government has committed to a programme of ‘levelling up’ regional inequalities and setting out new legislation to address health inequalities. This review suggests that it is possible to reduce health inequalities through long-term cross-government action, which was wide reaching both in terms of government departments and across the life course. Most encouragingly with respect to current government aims, geographical health inequalities especially narrowed. The strategy was supported by significant increases in both funding and reform of public services, of which only one has continued. Since the end of the strategy period, public services internationally, but particularly in the UK, have experienced reduced funding as a result of austerity policies from 2010 onwards. In the UK, this has particularly impacted on local authorities, social security, children’s services and, until the pandemic, to the NHS. Indeed, there is evidence that from 2010 onwards (and before the unequal impact of the pandemic) the improvements in health inequalities under the English strategy have reversed with, for example, increasing inequalities in infant mortality rates 40 and falling life expectancy in the most deprived areas. 41 Considerable investments in these services would be necessary to recreate a proactive attempt to tackle the social determinants of health inequalities.

The strategy used relative measures of inequality. Absolute measures are easier to change, making them appealing to policymakers as progress can be more easily proven. The goals were based on long-term changes in life expectancy and infant mortality rather than shorter term changes in measures such as blood pressure and heart rate. These were appropriate for the strategy given the wide-ranging, cross-departmental approach that aimed to target determinants of ill health. The fact that long-term, ambitious health inequalities targets require a cross-departmental approach can be of benefit to policy makers. They can provide rationale and strengthen the argument for a wide range of potentially transformative policies that may otherwise fail to be enacted due to a lack of political support. Goals were based on changes between the most and least deprived areas, rather than changes in the societal gradient in health. This again would be an easier target for policymakers to achieve. The government’s current targets, through the ‘levelling up’ programme are less ambitious than the strategy’s. 42 Only an absolute narrowing in life expectancy and well-being is aimed for, rather than the 10% change targeted by the strategy. Additionally, the absolute gap in life expectancy by area is measured between the top and bottom 10% rather than 20%.

Arguably more policy priority should have been given to reducing the gap in morbidities as the data fail to show a convincing narrowing of inequalities of self-reported health, mental health, health-related quality of life and long-term conditions.

More research is needed to unpick the active ingredients and exact initiatives that were most effective during the strategy. This should start with a more detailed understanding of which diseases drove the reduction in life expectancy and a broader understanding of how the wider determinants of health such as housing, income and education may have impacted changes in infant mortality, mortality and life expectancy.

In summary, this review found some evidence that the 1999–2010 cross-government health inequalities strategy led to a reduction in the absolute inequalities in life expectancy, mortality, infant mortality and major causes of death. While the impact on relative inequalities is less clear, there seemed to be a narrowing of relative inequalities in at least life expectancy and infant mortality. The national targets relating to life expectancy were met for men, but not women, and were achieved for infant mortality. Policymakers should take courage that progress on health inequalities is achievable with long-term, multiagency, cross-government action. These findings are especially pertinent at present times whereby many governments are aiming to use postpandemic recovery as an opportunity to build back better.

Supplementary Material

Twitter: @ilk21

Contributors: JAF conceptualised the study. JAF and IH drafted the protocol, and IK and AV provided comments. IK developed the searches with the support of IH and JAF. IH and AS screened the titles and abstract and were supported by JAF. IH and JF screened the full text articles. IH, AS and AV extracted and checked the extraction. IH wrote the first draft of the manuscript. JAF, IK, CB, AS and AV redrafted. All authors approved the final version. JAF is the guarantor.

Funding: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests: None declared.

Patient and public involvement: Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Supplemental material: This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.

Data availability statement

Ethics statements, patient consent for publication.

Not applicable.

Arts graduate education in Canada should be redesigned around students’ and society’s needs

Professor of Political Science, Carleton University

Professor of Political Science, University of Calgary

Executive Director, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, and Professor, Department of Political Studies, University of Saskatchewan

Disclosure statement

Jonathan Malloy receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Loleen Berdahl receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Lisa Young does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Calgary and University of Saskatchewan provide funding as founding partners of The Conversation CA.

University of Saskatchewan , University of Calgary , and Carleton University provide funding as members of The Conversation CA-FR.

Carleton University provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA.

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The recent federal announcement increasing doctoral and post-doctoral stipends is welcome. But money alone will not solve the challenges of graduate education in Canada. This is particularly true for social science and humanities (arts) graduate education.

The link between arts graduate degrees and careers is weak . Many arts PhDs aspire to become professors but Canada produces far more doctorates than available academic jobs . Although professional (course-based) masters degrees are typically very career-focused, many graduates of research Master of Arts (MA) degrees report struggling to launch a career.

In our new book For the Public Good: Reimagining Arts Graduate Programs in Canadian Universities , we put forward a vision of arts graduate degrees that links them to Canada’s public good challenges — such as political polarization, income inequality and Indigenous reconciliation.

We argue that degrees must be redesigned with deliberate purpose around students’ and society’s actual needs. Student talent needs to be developed in an efficient and inclusive way, and linked broadly to key public goods.

‘What can you do with that?’

While students continue to seek and enjoy advanced study of the social sciences and humanities, the question of “What can you do with that?” resonates far too much.

Many students themselves are unhappy . Completion times are longer and dropout rates are much higher in arts than in STEM graduate programs. Graduate students’ stressors are formidable , with poor mental well-being contributing to decisions to drop out .

Undergraduate arts degrees have long been seen as “ training for life .” But graduate students are older and practical concerns become paramount.

And since many graduate students receive government funding (in the form of scholarships and teaching or research assistant positions) to study, graduate education also receives far more public investment. It’s reasonable to ask whether this is a good use of funds when many students seem to have few job prospects.

Not a matter of slash and cut

Some advocate a simple solution: slash and cut these “impractical” degrees. However, as political scientists and public policy scholars, we know that Canada needs the arts, with its insights into human behaviour and thinking, more than ever. We argue for reimagining arts graduate programs to align with Canada’s most pressing public good issues.

Canada’s thorniest problems cannot be solved by science or technology alone. Their limits are seen as we grapple with the ethics of AI and complex human aspects of apparent “scientific” problems, like why some people refuse to be vaccinated.

Read more: What is intelligence? For millennia, western literature has suggested it may be a liability

Canada needs arts graduate education of a different kind than what is currently offered. As experienced administrators who have each held university leadership positions, we know the system right now is not working.

Erratic evolution of graduate education

Canadian arts graduate education has evolved erratically rather than strategically. The system is distorted by inappropriate funding models that give little guidance to students. They also incentivize universities to pursue quantity over quality.

Supervision models differ sharply across disciplines. In most STEM disciplines, graduate students work in faculty-led labs in teams on common projects.

In the humanities and most social sciences, graduate student research is almost entirely self-directed. (The fine arts, such as theatre and music, are more collaborative but are not our focus here.) While providing maximum freedom, this can lead students down dead-end alleys.

Grant agencies like the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council prioritize research training to produce “high-quality personnel.” But many arts graduate programs have not yet done enough to help students translate their graduate education to a meaningful career.

Students now left to struggle

The training arts graduate students receive is closely linked to academic career skills. In fact, arts students are better trained than ever for academic research jobs. But there are few available positions. Arts graduate students are then left to struggle to articulate how these academic career skills transfer to other sectors.

We call for an enhanced focus in arts degrees on what linguistics scholar and university president Joseph Aoun calls “ human literacy ” — the ability to engage others and think creatively about human relationships. Students also need technological and data literacy : an understanding of how things work, and how to analyze large amounts of information.

Read more: Writing is a technology that restructures thought — and in an AI age, universities need to teach it more

While the “digital humanities” have embraced aspects of this, we call for a more widespread and systematic approach. This doesn’t mean turning sociologists into software engineers. But it does mean developing advanced skills to interpret data and its human impacts, in ways that are useful beyond academia.

There is still a strong place for theoretical, curiosity-based arts research. After all, students are choosing research graduate degrees over professional training programs precisely because they seek intellectual challenge and discovery, not just job training. But there could be closer links between this theoretical, curiosity-based research, students’ employment or vocational needs and needs of communities.

Funding realignment needed

Achieving this demands effort at all levels within and beyond universities. It requires a realigning of the mechanisms, especially funding, on which the system is built.

Faculty and departments must shift from an “ academia-first ” mentality in their program objectives. Universities must find ways to pursue quality over quantity, rather than the opposite.

Governments and funding agencies need to shift to funding models appropriate for arts rather than borrowed from STEM, encouraging talent-building with a focus on the public good. Employers must be open to the powerful “soft skills” that arts graduates bring, rather than exclusively hiring on technical “hard skills.”

This is not a quick fix. Changing the arts graduate education status quo will require innovation and imagination. But universities and policymakers have a chance to take the first steps.

• Universities
• Arts education
• university education
• Public good
• Canadian research
• humanities education

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Higher Education

Hispanic Serving Institutions rely on federal funding to support Latino students. What happens when the money ends?

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Once federal grant funding ends many resources and opportunities at Hispanic Serving Institutions continue only through student and faculty efforts. Experts say campuses must maintain programs to better serve Latino students.

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For Athens Marron, transitioning from his hometown in the Coachella Valley to College of the Redwoods in Humboldt County felt isolating. Marron, a sociology major and ethnic studies minor, said he found it difficult to connect with other Latino students or participate in activities that would keep him from going directly home at the end of his day.

Shortly after transferring to Cal Poly Humboldt in fall 2022, he received an email about the PromotorX Transformative Educators Program, an opportunity funded by a federal Hispanic Serving Institutions grant.

“I signed up and went to the first meeting, and right away, it was a home away from home for me. It was that sense of community,” said Marron. “It definitely gave me more perspective on what I want to continue to pursue, which was education with high school students.”

Marron’s experience is exactly what the federal Hispanic Serving Institutions grant program was intended to do: create an environment on campus where Latino students feel like they belong, leading them to seek new opportunities on the path to graduation. Campuses have a wide range of flexibility in how they design their programs, and whether students are involved. The grants last up to five years, after which campuses can reapply for funding or find other ways to support their programs. 

At that point, some programs may expand with new funding while others scale down, surviving only through the efforts of students or faculty. But experts say to truly serve Latino students and improve their outcomes, campuses must create programs that can keep running even after grant funding dries up. 

Marisol Ruiz, the PromotorX Transformative Educators Program coordinator and a tenured professor of education, trains students of color to be teachers. Students create lesson plans and teach at local high schools. The campus received $2.7 million from the U.S. Department of Education starting in 2018, but as the program approaches the end of its grant cycle, Ruiz said that it may only continue unfunded and at a smaller scale. 

“We can create nice positions, but who’s doing the work, and are we going to continue that work?” Ruiz said. 

 When the grants run out, even impactful programs like Cal Poly Humboldt’s can fizzle all together. 

After the grant ends some colleges, such as Cal State Northridge, apply for new grants to improve their already successful programs. Others, like Cabrillo College and Cal State Long Beach, try to integrate programs campuswide or continue them as student organizations.  

Moving beyond enrollment to serve Latino students 

California colleges and universities enrolled over 900,000 Hispanic undergraduate students during the 2022-23 school year, 90% of whom attend a Hispanic Serving Institution. California’s Latino college population is nearly double the next closest state, Texas, where over 500,000 Latino undergraduates are enrolled. 

Still, just 22% of Hispanic adults age 25 and older have earned an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in California, compared to 56% of White non-Hispanic adults, according to Excelencia in Education , a nonprofit organization that supports Latino students in higher education. Researchers say intentionally serving Latino students means adjusting the structure of the campus to support their strengths beyond simply increasing Hispanic student enrollment.

Read More: Are California’s Hispanic Serving Institutions living up to their name?

To apply for funding, institutions must have at least a 50% low-income student enrollment and at least a 25% Hispanic undergraduate enrollment. Projects that receive federal dollars must follow non-discrimination requirements, meaning programs do not exclusively cater to Hispanic students. 

California’s 172 Hispanic Serving colleges and universities have been some of the largest beneficiaries of the federal grant program. They have received $637 million in grants ranging from $500,000 to $1,000,000 since 1995. Still, advocates and students say the HSI designation is not synonymous with specifically meeting the needs of Latino students. 

“One thing that makes us relate and come together is the fact that the institution doesn’t give us that sense of community,” Marron said. “They don’t serve us. It’s more like we’re creating that.”

Providing training for faculty or creating student cohorts with peer academic support are  approaches that have proven effective, according to Deborah Santiago, CEO of Excelencia in Education. But the Department of Education does not require that colleges tie their grants directly to student success. Santiago is a leading researcher in teaching methods that improve academic and non-academic outcomes for Latino students. Her organization launched the Seal of Excelencia in 2019 to create higher standards for supporting Latino students beyond enrollment. In California, 12 campuses are currently certified with the seal. 

Certified institutions, like Cal State Northridge, have been recognized for their efforts to make their federal grant funded programs a lasting part of their campuses. Led by engineering and computer science professor, S.K. Ramesh, the campus reapplied and expanded its STEM program for Hispanic and other underserved students with consecutive grants. Ramesh said support from campus leadership, faculty and staff have been key to securing ongoing federal funding, and to integrate components the program piloted, like undergraduate research opportunities, campuswide.

“If the money, if the program, and the practices go away when the money ends, I feel like that’s disingenuous,” Santiago said. “You didn’t build capacity. You didn’t improve the institution. You just did a grant, and I don’t think we look at that enough to say, ‘Have you institutionalized what you’ve piloted so that it serves your students well beyond the grant?’”

Limited funding and staffing mean many successful programs don’t continue 

Ruiz is the only coordinator leading the PromotorX Transformative Educators Program, something she says could be its own full-time position. Each semester, Ruiz trains groups of about 10 students in culturally responsive teaching. The predominantly Latino cohort of students received $600 stipends to host writing and editing workshops at local high schools and attended conferences that can cost $20,000 a year, according to Ruiz.

Ruiz also advises three student clubs, conducts her own research, teaches two courses and serves as a graduate program coordinator. She’s not had time to draft a new application, but is researching other funding sources to make her program a permanent part of the campus. 

“We’re still teaching. We’re still advising. So I think, yeah, we need more support, ” Ruiz said.

Students are filling gaps in resources once programs end

At Cal State Long Beach, Latino students have stepped in to sustain some aspects of their HSI program that recently lost funding. 

Starting in 2017, Cal State Long Beach received $2.4 million to launch the Caminos Project to encourage students to become teachers. The program also included curriculum development and outreach to high school students and their families.

Within four years, the program served 180 students who took courses together and had access to tutors and an academic advisor. For the duration of the Caminos Project, Latino enrollment in majors leading to credential programs increased by nearly 28%, according to Anna Ortiz, dean of the College of Education at Cal State Long Beach. 

With the grant funding, the Caminos Project hired an academic coach, a program coordinator, and peer mentors. When the grant period ended in September 2023, only the former academic coach continued working at the campus. The program has transformed into a student club, Caminantes for Education, where students serve as unpaid board members.

“I feel like there was a good balance between different kinds of support as a student, and I know as a club it’s definitely not the same,” said Alexis Monsivais, a former member of the Caminos Project who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts in December 2023. 

The program has some lasting impacts, including curriculum changes in the course catalog and a collection of videos on culturally responsive teaching for new mentors and faculty. However, Monsivais said that as a new club, they have struggled to find allies on campus and were pushed out of their designated room in the College of Education once federal funding ended. 

“The power of having a program coordinator, someone older like an academic coach, someone there who’s actively vouching for you — that was definitely a struggle that we had for the first year,” Monsivais said about the challenges of transitioning to a club.

Campuses creating institutional change beyond grants

Some leaders have integrated the idea of servingness into their programs. Created by leading HSI scholars like Gina Ann Garcia, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Education, the framework outlines how campuses can better support Latino students.

“If we think about what our Latine students need, then we change the organization to adapt to the students instead of expecting students to adapt to the institution,” Garcia said. 

Starting in 2019, Cabrillo College received $3 million to improve its transfer pathway to Cal State Monterey Bay for 30 students each year. The partnership also provided academic counselors and peer mentors.  

During the 2021-22 school year, the program at Cabrillo College served 27 students — over 90% of them were Latino. Around 30% of Latino and low-income students were ready to transfer with their degrees within two years, compared to the 10% who earned their degrees in two years but were not program participants. Cabrillo College has signed a guarantee with Cal State Monterey Bay for transfer admission, which Cabrillo College’s Title V Director, Ann Endris, said helps their work continue after the grant. 

While the program at Cabrillo College has been successful in graduating its Latino students, Endris, who helps manage federal HSI grants at Cabrillo College, said grant funded programs should not be the only place on campuses that offer support for Latino students. 

Cabrillo College established an HSI task force of over 50 faculty, staff and administrators in 2021 to provide recommendations on how the campus can provide support for students outside of programs funded by Hispanic Serving Institutions grants. The college also established an HSI leadership team to ensure that the recommendations are put into practice. 

“We have really developed HSI as a full-on initiative and movement at Cabrillo so that these grants are not in an isolated corner,” Endris said. “It doesn’t matter what shared governance meeting you’re in. If you’re in Faculty Senate or wherever you are, people are talking about HSI and HSI work.”

Endris said that even after their grant period ends, the program will continue partnering with Cal State Monterey Bay to bring the strategies from its transfer pathways to other programs. They still plan to collaborate with peer mentors from Cal State Monterey Bay to guide transfer students and keep tools that have helped academic counselors.

Like at Cabrillo, building upon successful grant programs has been the focus at Cal State Northridge. Ramesh has been the sole writer of the HSI grants, with guidance from fellow faculty, since he joined the university as a dean in 2006. After noticing that some students did not have role models in engineering, he launched the Attract, Inspire, Mentor and Support Students program.

He secured a $5.4 million HSI STEM grant starting in 2011. The program provided engineering students with study skills, time management workshops, community research opportunities along with faculty and peer mentors from their majors. Over a six-year period, the program served 138 students from Cal State Northridge and 377 students from College of the Canyons and Glendale Community College.

Cal State Northridge then received $6.2 million in 2016 from the same federal grant, which was used to continue the program. This time, the program served 500 students at Cal State Northridge and 3,000 students at four partner community colleges over another six-year period. Cal State Northridge students in the program had six-year graduation rates of 85% during the first grant period and 92% during the second grant, compared to Cal State Northridge’s average of 56%.

The grant has affected students beyond those who enrolled in the program. Undergraduate research opportunities and peer mentorship programs, both piloted by the HSI program, are now offered campuswide by the Office of Undergraduate Research.

Ramesh said some programs may be well-intentioned, but they may only serve a handful of students, and not all aspects of the program can be scaled to a larger student population without sufficient staff, space and funding.  

“So strategically at the top, there has to be buy-in at the university level,” Ramesh said. “There has to be buy-in at the faculty level, there has to be buy-in at the staff level. Everybody plays a part in this because it’s not just one group that can take sole responsibility for either implementing the program or measuring the outcomes.”

Barahona is a fellow with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

Read More on Higher Education

Are California’s Hispanic Serving Institutions living up to their name?

Hundreds arrested and suspended: How California colleges are disciplining faculty and students over protests

Why UC grad students are going out on strike

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Haydee Barahona

Haydee Barahona is a fourth-year communications major with an emphasis in journalism at California State University, Bakersfield. She was born in the San Fernando Valley but raised in the Central Valley.... More by Haydee Barahona

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About the Health Disparities and Health Inequality Certificate Program

The goal of the certificate program is to train future leaders in research on health disparities and health inequality, and to train individuals to identify the underlying causes of health inequalities and how to develop and implement effective solutions.

Educational Objectives

Upon successful completion of this certificate program, students will:

• Become knowledgeable of the current research on health disparities and health inequalities
• Become knowledgeable on the underlying cause of health inequalities
• Be able to identify, describe, and be knowledgeable regarding possible solutions to address/reduce health inequalities in different populations

Curriculum for the Health Disparities and Health Inequality Certificate Program

Please visit our Academic Catalogue to see the full certificate curriculum requirements. Please also review the certificate completion requirements .

Admissions Requirements

Degree students.

The certificate program is open to master's and doctoral students currently enrolled in any division of the Johns Hopkins University, with the exception of BSPH MAS degree students, who are not eligible to apply.

Applicants must submit the declaration of intent form prior to starting coursework.

Priority deadline to submit intent is October 1; final deadline to submit intent is December 1.

Eligible Start Terms :

1st and 3rd

Non-Degree Students

This certificate program is only open to individuals who are currently matriculated in a degree program in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health or other schools at the Johns Hopkins University.

Information regarding the cost of tuition and fees can be found on the Bloomberg School's Certificate Programs Tuition page.

Questions about the program? We're happy to help.

Sponsoring Department Health Policy and Management

Certificate Program Contact Pamela Davis 410.614.1580 [email protected]

Faculty Sponsor Darrell J. Gaskin

Faculty Sponsor Roland J. Thorpe, Jr .

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Scholars Convene for 2024 ISA-RC28 Conference on Life Course and Social Inequality

Over 200 scholars from 103 universities and institutes in 22 countries gathered at NYU Shanghai for the 2024 Spring Meeting of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee 28 (ISA-RC28) from May 17th to 19th. The conference, hosted by the NYU Shanghai Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER) , featured a keynote speech, a plenary session, and panel sessions on topics related to social stratification, mobility, and inequality.

RC28, the 28th Research Committee established under the International Sociological Association (ISA) , aims to advance high-quality research on social stratification and mobility, and to promote international exchange in the field of sociology. Since its establishment in 1960, RC28 has significantly contributed to the advancement of research in social stratification and mobility, forming a dynamic academic community that attracts leading scholars in the field for collaboration. This year’s Spring meeting marked the second time RC28 has held a meeting in mainland China, following its 2009 meeting in Beijing.

“RC28 is a unique and esteemed platform and cohesive community where leading scientists in the field of social stratification and mobility come together. We are honored to host this significant event and welcome our colleagues from across the world for this exciting occasion,” said CASER Director Wu Xiaogang , the Yufeng Global Professor of Social Science at NYU Shanghai and Professor of Sociology at New York University. 

Provost Joanna Waley-Cohen opened the conference by welcoming the guests to NYU Shanghai for this scholarly gathering. In her remarks, she provided a brief introduction to CASER and the University, highlighting the unique role NYU Shanghai and the Center have been playing in connecting global scholars to the Chinese academic community and Chinese scholars to the global academic community. Following her remarks, RC28 President Hiroshi Ishida, Professor of Sociology at the University of Tokyo, welcomed the participants to Shanghai, expressed gratitude for NYU Shanghai’s support, and encouraged attendees to enjoy the meeting’s vitality and creativity.

The meeting brought together leading social scientists from around the world to discuss topics on the theme of “Life Course and Social Inequality in Comparative Perspective,” featuring keynote speakers and panel discussions with renowned scholars. On the first day, Xie Yu, the Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, delivered a keynote speech on Family, Child Development, and Social Mobility in Contemporary China. In his address, Xie shared his research and insights on family’s influence on child development in China and its causal mechanisms, and comparisons with other developed Western countries.

The conference featured 39 parallel sessions, during which 175 papers were presented. The topics covered a broad spectrum of research on topics such as trends in inequality, income gap, gender inequality, occupational mobility, the long-term impact of early life, family and school dynamics, return to education, and life transitions.

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College of Law

Iowa Law student awarded Peggy Browning Fellowship

Philadelphia, PA, May 2024 - Justin Rempe from University of Iowa College of Law has been awarded a Peggy Browning Fund fellowship in workplace justice advocacy. The application process is highly competitive, and the award is a tribute to Justin’s outstanding qualifications.

Justin Rempe (J.D. candidate, 2025) will be at United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in Triangle, VA. Justin grew up in a union family in rural southern Iowa. As a child, Justin witnessed his widowed mother struggle to make ends meet while working two minimum-wage jobs. This experience was critical in forming his sense of class consciousness. Justin’s passion for fighting injustice and inequality was further focused while serving as an AmeriCorps justice advocate with Iowa Legal Aid’s Hotline for Older Iowans. 

On campus, Justin continues to volunteer my time with the Iowa Supreme Court’s Access-to-Justice Commission. During his 1L summer, he was honored to work and contribute to the Iowa Civil Rights  Commission as a legal intern. Justin is excited to join the United Mine Workers of America this summer and looks forward to deepening his knowledge of how to leverage the law to fight for worker justice.

This year, the Peggy Browning Fund announced 117 law students were accepted into their nationwide fellowship program, the largest cohort in our history. Securing a Peggy Browning Fellowship is a challenging process, with over 3,950 applications for the 2024 program. 

As the country continues to face unprecedented challenges to workers’ rights, the fight for workplace justice has never been more pressing. Labor needs lawyers and we are inspired by the passion and dedication this year’s Fellows bring to the movement.

These Fellows are distinguished students who have not only excelled in law school but who have also demonstrated their commitment to workers’ rights through their previous educational, organizing, work, volunteer, and personal experiences.

Read the original press release.