Research Library

"Although there is evidence that living in a low-income neighborhood can have negative health impacts, resident and neighborhood attributes [such as the ability to bounce back from adversity] can be mitigating factors,” write the authors.

Effective drug policy requires acceptance that, for better or worse, licit and illicit drug use is part of our world. The authors recommend several steps the federal government can take to facilitate more pragmatic and effective drug policy at all levels of government.

Decades of research demonstrate the critical importance of early childhood development, but the United States ranks last among wealthy countries in child health outcomes. This brief lays out a series of recommendations to improve the developmental potential of American children.

Public finance fellow Joyce Beebe discusses the tax policy considerations of an increasingly mobile workforce, including state tax and regulatory issues, reimbursement for home office expenses and workplace benefits.

Public finance fellow Jorge Barro examines the Federal Reserve’s aggressive financial market response to the Covid-19 pandemic and asserts that without its use of unconventional policy tools, adverse outcomes could have spread to other areas of the economy, disproportionately impacting low-income households.

In this study, the authors surveyed students in 80 Harris County schools, as well as their parents, to identify external factors that influence academic performance, particularly among students living in poverty. Their findings can be broadly used to better understand the unmet needs of students under current systems of support, and to develop solutions that can give every child an opportunity to succeed.

The Covid-19 pandemic created unprecedented challenges for resettled refugees in the U.S. and exposed underlying vulnerabilities that particularly impact refugee women and children, as well as the organizations that work to support them. The authors examine the difficulties facing refugees in the U.S. and offer policy recommendations that may help them.

The authors explore the health barriers and vulnerabilities of undocumented immigrants during the coronavirus pandemic, reveal the gaps in the Covid-19 relief bills and consider the implications for immigrant children.

Parental stress, which is heightened during natural disasters, can produce negative physiological responses in the developing brains of their infants and young children. This irreversibly alters the child’s brain structure, impacting their long-term prospects for good health and academic and economic success. Now is the time to institute policies and practices that mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the next generation, write the authors,

Understanding how to interpret the signs of a child's distress as they adjust to a new way of life during Covid-19 — and how to respond appropriately — is important for a child's mental health and development.