Funded faculty research

While approximately 12,000 Detroit homeowners living in poverty qualify for the Poverty Tax Exemption, the policy remains underutilized by residents in need. This project evaluated the effectiveness of the policy and studied potential factors that may hinder or facilitate its access.

This project will compare the diverse ways in which previous experiences with Conditional Cash Transfers determined how COVID-19 cash assistance were envisioned and operationalized in Brazil and Colombia.

The Transportation Security Index provides a comprehensive measure of whether people can travel where they need to go, regardless of mode of travel or neighborhood context.

Researchers interviewed 23 retirees about the types and frequency of help provided to their adult children and extended kin.

Partnered with one of the world's largest garment manufacturers in India, researchers planned to run a randomized controlled trial that aimed to facilitate Indian women's rural-urban migration and assess impacts on the well-being of workers and their families.

The goal of this project is to assess the feasibility of using grocery delivery to strengthen services related to the special supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) by improving access to and use of food benefits during pregnancy.

This grant allowed Sara Heller to expand on three research projects that can provide evidence to guide the development of effective interventions aimed at youth whose families have low incomes.

The research investigates the impact of offering home visiting universally to all women, regardless of insurance status, on participation rates and the health outcomes of mothers and babies.

This project designed and developed an intervention to assist people who are unemployed and homeless in Detroit who also are experiencing anxiety and/or depression-related barriers to employment.

The goals of this project are to better understand the state of first-time homebuyer education in Detroit and to analyze public data sources that represent the state of sales and homeownership in Detroit.

The U-M Online Court Project (OCP) developed and tested an objective digital method of evaluating litigants' ability to pay.

Housing Solutions for Health Equity (HSHE) at U-M was launched in 2021 with the mission of addressing the critical intersection between housing and health equity. 

The research team worked closely with COTS, an agency that provides emergency, transitional, and permanent supportive housing services to families, to better understand the life events and needs of their clients through use of a Clinical Ethnographic Narrative Interview.

This mixed-methods project assessed the current prevalence, risk factors, and consequences of food insecurity through an online survey representative of the U-M student body in winter 2018.

Researchers collected statewide case filing data and data from a random sample of eviction case records in Washtenaw and Lenawee counties to understand the prevalence, patterns, and causes of evictions in Michigan.

This study is designed to collate evidence around the link between income and health and examine the implications for current proposals to redistribute income and wealth.

Researchers examined the scarce resource of non-emergency medical transportation within the city of Detroit and a new system designed to improve health care access for underserved communities in western Detroit.

In the U.S., the first half of 2020 saw a sharp rise in hate incidents targeting Asian Americans, who have been scapegoated for the COVID-19.

Complete and adequate plumbing in people's homes is a growing concern for Michigan communities and affects poor and minority households disproportionately.

This case study of Washtenaw County examines the impact of the 2017 changes to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

This project examines the evolution of Conditional Cash Transfer programs in five Latin American countries – Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Peru – between 1995 and 2025.

Using a new metric called the equitable energy efficiency (E3) baseline, researchers measured the effectiveness of state policies at achieving equitable outcomes for low-income households.

This project gathered in-depth, qualitative information about the impact of decision-making among front-line financial service employees.

The Functional Sentencing program attempts to help people permanently exit the criminal justice system by replacing fines and costs with targeted interventions that address the root causes of an individual's offense.

The goal is to better understand the most effective mode of sharing information about how different treated drinking waters are processed, so individuals can make decisions on the best water hydration choice for themselves.

This project used a mixed methods case study design to amplify how Black families make decisions and leverage resources in support of their children's mathematics education during COVID-19.

The Detroit River Story Lab sought to partner with local organizations in their ongoing efforts to strengthen the narrative infrastructure of the Detroit River corridor in order to reconnect communities with the river and its stories.

This project developed a new model for employing community health workers to serve the Detroit Cody Rouge neighborhood.

The purpose of this project is to assess the feasibility, acceptability, usability, and impact of WorkChat: A Virtual Workday as an intervention to support income growth through sustained employment for adults with psychosis spectrum disorders.

The study tracked outcomes for 11 nominees who received Barrier Buster awards ranging from $500 to $2,000 and a comparison group of four nominees who did not receive Barrier Buster awards.