Research Projects

This initiative will feature two activity strands with immediate value for informing public discourse and legislative activity around Generative AI policy: (1) data collection and research with stakeholders about the need for AI infrastructure and education in Illinois, and (2) education and dissemination activities about AI for legislators and the broader policy community in Illinois. This grant will fund activities that will generate timely evidence to inform decisions to respond to AI’s disruptions

This research will examine how employment centers have been changing in location, constitution, and function in the greater Chicago region. It will identify and measure the characteristics of metropolitan Chicago employment centers in 2019 and in 2023 or 2024 as the most recent available data permit. It will assess the implications of these shifts for the magnitude and distribution of economic activities and resources in the region.

The objective of this study is to establish early childhood programming as violence prevention planning. The Illinois State Board of Education has early learning standards and Head Start has performance standards. Yet, these are general guidelines without specific curricular recommendations or evidence-based program suggestions. We propose to conduct a systematic scoping literature review and a comparative analysis of three stress-coping programs hypothesized to promote emotional regulation and prevent violence and related long-term negative outcomes.
This study serves as a critical next step toward providing policy recommendations for early childhood social emotional learning and teacher preparation programs.

The initiative in this study has two primary goals: to promote continuity of coverage and care and to improve the quality of care and health outcomes among Illinois Medicaid beneficiaries. Because beneficiaries who are reinstated to Medicaid within 90 days of the redetermination period will be automatically reenrolled into their managed care plan, we expect the initiative to minimize churn between Medicaid FFS and managed care. The resulting continuity in coverage will prevent disruptions in care caused by breaks in communication with care coordinators, gaps in claims history, and confusion over existing authorizations among beneficiaries and providers. Ultimately, we expect that ensuring continuity and minimizing churn will drive better quality care and improved health outcomes for Medicaid beneficiaries.

This project engages teens as partners to research issues in their communities that impact their daily lives and then develop plans for action change to advocate with the appropriate policy organizations. Commonly termed youth participatory action research (YPAR), the project empowers teens to civic participation and begins their training as the next generation of engaged researchers.

Housing code enforcement has been described as “law in action” – in this project, we evaluate local government rental property regulation and the extent to which code enforcement actions influence housing affordability, housing stability, and access to resource-rich neighborhoods. Using a combination of traditional policy evaluation techniques coupled with documentary video, we develop policy-informed narratives to share with local governments, housing professionals, and policymakers.

Illinois has the highest reported numbers of non-repatriated remains in the United States. A recent study confirmed that Indigenous Ancestors are housed within MEC offices nationwide. A systematic and thorough examination of each Illinois MEC office will allow for the identification of where and how repatriation is lapsing and lead to informed recommendations for policy changes as appropriate.

Food insecurity contributes to many chronic diseases through its effect on diet quality. People of color, especially those living in communities characterized by persistent poverty, have among the highest rates of chronic disease in the United States (U.S.) including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. Food insecurity often forces individuals to make trade-offs between food and other resources—including health care.

At the same time, people of color are also disproportionately exposed to precarious employment (e.g., job instability, low wages, limited benefits, and few protections). Employment is a social determinant of health, as well as a factor that influences other social determinants of health. For instance, wages and benefits obtained from work influence where a person is able to live, their access to and use of healthcare and social services, and access to healthy food options. Because of relatively higher rates of unemployment among racial/ethnic minority working age individuals, this population experiences persistent food insecurity. Yet, research has yet to answer: can policies that provide greater employment protections mitigate food insecurity among low-wage workers?

The Farm Bill Mapping Project uses existing public data to visualize agricultural and conservation policies in support of policy design efforts in the forthcoming 2023 Congressional Farm Bill reauthorization process. The project further combines statutory and regulatory interpretation with data and computation from the Policy Design Lab at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Eventually, the resulting public-facing mapping effort will demonstrate the statutory and regulatory provisions of the Farm Bill.

How have changes in the work-force due to COVID-19 and shifts to work-from-home employment models impacted local government sales taxes and mass transit agencies’ revenues? This initiative seeks to provide data and methodologies that will help policymakers understand and react to the most significant change in the labor market in decades.

Read the findings from this research here: https://igpa.uillinois.edu/reports/working-from-home-in-illinois-who-can-and-does.

Using innovative qualitative and quantitative research methods, this project will explore how the COVID-19 pandemic affected mental health and vaccine uptake among children, families, and childcare providers. The research team will inform public health policy narratives and recommend messaging for mental health and vaccine uptake in the wake of COVID-19.