Brown School doctoral students were recently the lead authors of stories in two prestigious social work and public health journals.
In ”Cash Transfers and Health,” published in the Annual Review of Public Health, Sicong (Summer)Sun analyzes the impact of cash payments on families with children – similar to proposals from the Biden administration. Sun led a team from the Center for Social Development (CSD) that conducted the research. “Evidence suggests that cash transfers produce positive health effects, but there are many complexities and variations in the outcomes,” she writes. “Continuing research and policy innovation—for example, universal basic income and universal Child Development Accounts—are likely to be productive.”
In “Voting Infrastructure and Process: Another Form of Voter Suppression?”, published in Social Service Review, Kyle Pitzer looks at data collected in a CSD study examining St. Louis polling places in the 2018 election. “Findings indicate that voting infrastructure and process at polling sites are associated with the predominant race and income level of census tracts in which they are located,” he concludes. “Problems in voting infrastructure and process are not usually discussed as intentional voter suppression, but this evidence suggests that they are systemic and have the same effect as intentional voter suppression.”
“These are important papers published in top journals,” said Michael Sherraden, the George Warren Brown Distinguished University Professor at the Brown School and director of the CSD. “Our Ph.D. students lead excellent research and publish in the best academic journals. More importantly, they are only at the beginning of their academic careers and will contribute much more in the years ahead.”