Miyashita Ochoa on Outdated Blood Donation Restrictions

/0 Comments/in /by

Social Welfare faculty member Ayako Miyashita Ochoa spoke to ABC News about prospects that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will update its blood donation policy, which restricts participation by some members of the LGBTQ community. The policy has evolved over the years. In 1985, the FDA banned all donations from men who have sex with men in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Today, donations are accepted from gay and bisexual men who abstain from sex for 90 days. If a policy change is implemented, gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships will be able to donate without abstaining from sex. Implementing the change would help battle stigma and address future blood shortages. Research by Miyashita Ochoa found that eliminating the ban could increase the donation supply by 2% to 4%, bringing in more than 615,000 pints of blood every year. “That isn’t a small amount,” she said. “That 2 to 4% count is roughly calculated to a million lives saved.”

Read the article

 

Anheier Analyzes Feasibility of Germany’s New Foreign Policy

/0 Comments/in /by

Helmut Anheier, adjunct professor of social welfare and public policy, wrote an opinion article for Project Syndicate about Germany’s new plan to adopt epochal change in order to engage in foreign policy in a more active manner. The country has signaled that it will focus on a more feminist foreign policy and take a less ambiguous position in regard to doing business with autocrats. However, the likelihood of Germany following through with this plan is in question, Anheier said, pointing to the country’s past record of falling short on similar aspirations. Earlier this year, Germany announced support for Ukraine but has not yet delivered all the aid it promised, and it has also been slow in supporting the women-led protests in Iran. Furthermore, the country’s coalition government has frustrated German voters because of differing political goals within the alliance.

Read the commentary

 

Stoll on Housing Vouchers, Race and Discrimination

/0 Comments/in /by

Michael Stoll, professor of public policy and urban planning, spoke to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on his research posing the question, “Do Black voucher recipients’ moves to the suburbs increase crime rates?” The answer to this question, according to his study, is no. Using federal data for the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, Stoll analyzed the impact that Housing Choice Voucher recipients had on majority-white suburbs. The research determined that non-white voucher holders moving into white suburbs did not cause crime rates to increase. However, the mere perception that lower-income residents will have a negative impact on an affluent neighborhood can have real consequences. “It can influence neighbors’ resistance to landlords’ willingness to rent,” Stoll said. He called for more enforcement of housing fairness laws to ensure that voucher holders are not forced into lower-income and racially segregated neighborhoods due to discrimination from landlords.

Read the article

 

Turner’s Research Helps Oasis Residents Battle the Heat

/0 Comments/in /by

V. Kelly Turner, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, spoke to the Desert Sun about her research on shade scarcity in Oasis, California. Because Oasis does not have tall buildings or trees, it has larger shade deserts than other communities. The study looked into how heat changes were affecting residents of Oasis and possible solutions to alleviate this struggle. For example, temporary shade structures were created at bus stops to provide people with places to sit that are protected from the heat. Building this kind of shelter could also encourage ridership on buses. Turner said amenities such as the shaded bus shelters help address the heat burden for people who are unable to reside in air-conditioned settings. “Every city needs to be planning for shade and probably planning for more of it, given what we’re anticipating with climate change,” she said.

Read the article

 

Manville on Bay Area’s Housing Dilemma

/0 Comments/in /by

Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning, spoke to Courthouse News about the current housing crisis in the Bay Area. Affordable housing for middle- and low-income families is scarce, especially in the East Bay, in part because investors are outbidding traditional homeowners to buy multiple single-family homes. In addition, cities are simply are not building enough housing to meet demand. Manville commented on the city of Berkeley’s report on housing, saying, “Institutional investors like to buy in the Bay Area because the Bay Area doesn’t build housing. These companies feed off scarcity.” He added, “Berkeley needs more housing. The main way to keep it affordable is to build new housing so rich people don’t buy it up.”

Read the article

 

Torres-Gil Urges a New Outlook on Retirement

/1 Comment/in /by

Fernando Torres-Gil, professor of social welfare and public policy, co-wrote an opinion piece for the Abilene Reporter News advising people to consider the future impact of a growing population of retired Americans. As life spans have increased, retirement from work has become more common. Yet a robust labor force is needed to ensure that the U.S. Social Security program remains solvent, particularly given data about the kind of care that older Americans will require. “More than 9 million Americans across the nation will need dementia care by 2030, and nearly 12 million by 2040,” wrote Torres-Gil and co-author Jacqueline L. Angel. To combat the financial stressors that this growing population demographic places on government, some lawmakers are proposing increasing the retirement age to 70 or increasing the eligibility age for access to Medicare. This would create hardship for many, Torres-Gil said, stressing the importance of a sustainable safety net to provide stability for those in their later years of life.

Read the op-ed

 

Astor on Strategies for Deterring Gun Violence

/0 Comments/in /by

Ron Avi Astor, professor of social welfare, spoke to the Seattle Times about the rise in gun violence across the country and the recent fatal school shooting in Seattle. “In almost every category of school safety, things have gotten better, except for the school shootings,” Astor said. Astor and a group of experts created an eight-point plan to reduce gun violence that recommended that schools steer away from hefty and unnecessary spending and instead focus on community building and climate and culture evaluation. “Twenty-five years ago it was in the millions, and now it’s in the billions and billions and billions of dollars,” Astor said, referring to local and federal spending on K-12 school safety and security. He said it is essential that schools implement strategies rooted in a clear vision for reducing gun violence, one that promotes school safety without hardening schools, increasing budgets and harming students.

Read the article

 

Yaroslavsky on New Faces at L.A. City Hall

/0 Comments/in /by

Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke to LAist about recent upheaval in local government. In the 15-person L.A. City Council, one member has been suspended, two were defeated in reelection bids, two others left to run for other offices, and one resigned amid the scandal over a leaked recording of a racist conversation. As a result, several new faces will join the council, including a community activist, a labor organizer and six women — the most the council has ever had. Yaroslavsky, who served on the City Council and county Board of Supervisors for decades, praised the range of life backgrounds brought by the newcomers. “It is not good for the City Council to be a homogenous entity where everybody has the same career and life experiences,” Yaroslavsky said. “That’s not been healthy. And I think it’s part of the reason that there’s a malaise in City Hall.”

Read the article

 

Brozen on Effectiveness of Transit Ambassadors

/0 Comments/in /by

Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, was cited in a Curbed article about improving safety on subways and LA Metro lines by employing transit ambassadors. These ambassadors serve to create a safer environment and help commuters with questions and directions. Metro’s 2022 customer experience survey showed that a large number of commuters were people of color and lower income whose greatest concern was reliable service and a feeling of safety. Reports of racial profiling by Metro police had contributed to negative experiences. “Researchers found that poorly guarded or empty areas on the train and platform contributed to not feeling safe riding the train at night,” Brozen said. The ambassador program aims to create a more welcoming environment throughout the Metro system, and could open doors to more safety initiatives in the future. “The public realm needs more people looking out for other people,” Brozen said. 

Read the article

 

Yin on Strategies to Reduce Medical Debt

/0 Comments/in /by

Wesley Yin, associate professor of public policy and management, spoke to the podcast Tradeoffs about how Americans can reduce their medical debt. Currently, about 100 million Americans have amassed more than $140 billion in medical debt. Yin explained that simply forgiving a person’s medical bills is a short-term solution to the greater problem of accumulating medical debt. When a hospital erases debt and temporarily reduces service costs, patients became more likely to receive care; however, within six months, they are likely to go back to getting less care as their debt again piles up, a study by Yin has found. Yin and his colleagues also published a paper in JAMA showing that states with Medicaid had far less medical debt than those without it. “In the states that expanded Medicaid, the amount of debt basically was halved. And in places that didn’t, it was essentially unchanged,” he told the podcast in a segment beginning at minute 10.

Listen to the podcast