New Funding from the Russell Sage Foundation
The Schroeder Center is pleased to announce a recent grant from the Russell Sage Foundation awarded to Melissa McInerney (W&M), Jennifer Mellor (W&M) and Lauren Hersch Nicholas (University of Michigan).
The Russell Sage Foundation is a non-profit organization devoted to encouraging and improving research in the social sciences to better inform policy on issues ranging from health, education, inequality, immigration, and the future of the American work force. McInerney, Mellor, and Nicholas’ grant is funded by the Russell Sage Foundation’s special initiative on the social and economic effects of the Great Recession. This initiative provides funding to distinguished scholars and researchers to explore the long-term effects of the recession on American social and economic institutions.
Research funded by the special initiative will investigate the consequences of the recession on the labor market, food insecurity, financial behavior, state fiscal health, and retirement security, among others.
McInerney, Mellor and Nicholas will study the Consequences of The Great Recession on Health and Health-Related Outcomes. They will use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to analyze the effects of unemployment and wealth declines on health and health-related behaviors of Americans during recessions. Financial shock and job loss can have an appreciable effect on health through increased stress and loss of employer-based health insurance. However, previous studies show that recession is often associated with decreased mortality and a reduction in health-adverse behaviors. McInerney, Mellor, and Nicholas will examine health outcomes using individual-level data from the HRS and will examine whether these effects vary depending on race, age, education level, and socioeconomic status.
