On the Complex Dynamics of the Latino Vote

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The Boston Globe highlighted findings from a UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI) report that identified the complex dynamics of the Latino vote in the 2020 elections, with lessons for campaign strategists in this fall’s midterm elections. Latino voters are the new swing voters, but the Democratic Party seems to be in denial about this insight, the Globe columnist wrote. Researchers found that Latino voters split their ballot at a significant rate in 2020. “They are convincible, you can go out and reach out to them, and they’ll think about their vote carefully,” said Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, LPPI’s director of research. “They will eventually make a decision based on what resonates the most with them, but also on who engages them the most.” Dominguez-Villegas said some Democratic campaigns still use an outdated, one-size-fits-all approach to Latino engagement without recognizing inherent differences between, say, voters of Venezuelan descent and second-generation Mexican-Americans.

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Pierce on Failing Water Systems in California

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Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, spoke with Courthouse News about a new state audit that found that nearly 1 million Californians lack access to safe water. The audit classified 418 local water systems as “failing,” meaning their water supply exceeds the maximum allowable contaminant levels for safe drinking water. This could expose customers to a range of health dangers, including an increased risk of cancer as well as liver and kidney problems. Complicating efforts to improve water quality is the state’s decentralized patchwork of local agencies composed of roughly 7,400 “drinking water systems,” some private, some public. “Every state has way too many drinking water systems, compared to other utilities,” said Pierce, who leads the UCLA Human Right to Water Solutions Lab. He said the state water board has been trying to consolidate these systems to improve accountability and performance, but “it’s slow going. It takes a long time. And it’s political.”

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Crenshaw Project Stresses Community Voice

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Urban Planning chair Chris Tilly and three graduate students appeared on the radio program “Everything Co-Op” to share their experiences working with residents of Los Angeles’ Crenshaw District on a community development strategy. As part of the UCLA Urban Planning Community Collaborative, the master’s students partnered with Crenshaw residents to research and report on their top priorities. “Their No. 1 concern was increasing community control and Black self-determination, Black sovereignty, over a predominantly Black community,” Tilly said. In a conversation that touched on gentrification, environmental equity, food and housing insecurity, and the creation of high-quality jobs, Tilly and students Eliza Jane Franklin, Geoff Gusoff and Ernest Johnson stressed the importance of letting community members lead. During the collaboration, the students learned about cooperatives, affordable housing, community land trusts and other resources, Tilly said, but “the most important thing that students should be learning in this kind of project is how to work with people in the community.”

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UCLA Study Finds Significant Increase in Firearm Suicide Among Young Black Adults

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The suicide rate for young Black adults has increased significantly since 2013, according to a new research report co-authored by UCLA Luskin’s Mark Kaplan, professor of social welfare. Increases in overall suicide rates among young Black and other racial/ethnic minority populations are characterized as “alarming” by Kaplan and colleagues from UCLA and UC Merced in the study published by the journal Archives of Suicide Research. Based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the research team identified adults aged 18-25 who died by suicide from any method, as well as firearm-related suicides in the United States. After more than a decade of declining rates of suicide among young Black adults, the new results showed an 84.5% increase in the firearm suicide rate among Black men and a 76.9% increase among young Black women between 2013 and 2019. “The mechanisms/causes of this concerning trend are not clear,” wrote Kaplan and co-authors about the “sharp reversal” of the downward trend since 2013. “This context highlights how the intersection of age, gender and race influences suicide trends.” Additional research in relation to suicide risk is recommended around potential population-level environmental exposures, rising racial and economic inequalities, and the recent proliferation of firearms. “Future research should consider how structural factors may lead to suicide and the appropriate analytic methods needed to draw rigorous inferences from these complex relationships,” researchers said.

 

Ian Holloway Named Editor-in-Chief of Sexuality Research and Social Policy At a time when people’s sexuality and reproductive rights are at issue, UCLA professor hopes to make relevant academic insight more readily available to policymakers

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By Les Dunseith

Ian Holloway, a professor of social welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, has been named editor-in-chief of Sexuality Research and Social Policy.

The peer-reviewed academic journal publishes research on sexuality and the implications of that research on public policy across the globe. It has traditionally been focused primarily on an academic audience, but Holloway intends to work with the editorial board to expand the journal’s reach and impact in response to a wave of anti-LGBT legislation in the United States and issues such as the ongoing criminalization of same-sex sexual behavior in many countries.

“I think that this historical moment really calls upon us, as academics, to make sure the work we’re producing reaches policymakers and other decision-makers, including practitioners and the folks who are designing programs in government and public health settings,” said Holloway, who is director of the UCLA Hub for Health Intervention, Policy and Practice and its Gay Sexuality and Social Policy Initiative.

He envisions promoting research from the journal via social media, soliciting more special issues on timely and relevant topics, and putting short summaries of key findings atop articles — written in layperson’s language to make academic work that is relevant to ongoing policy debates more widely accessible.

“Those of us who’ve been writing peer-reviewed articles for academic journals for years have a particular style of writing, a particular format of writing, that may not be conducive to lay audiences,” Holloway noted. “But lay audiences include policymakers who may not have the time, the energy or the expertise to wade through an academic article on a particular topic.”

At a time when people’s sexuality and the reproductive rights of pregnant people are at issue, Holloway sees his new role as an opportunity to make a difference.

“A lot of times, policy decisions are not evidence-based,” he said. “They’re based in moral judgment or religious views.

“But we have robust scientific evidence that is based on sexual liberty and the impact of social policy on sexuality. And I would like to make that academic discourse more relevant and available to those who are making decisions for the future of our country and for communities across the globe.” 

As editor-in-chief, Holloway will have the final say on every manuscript that is published in the journal, about 150 articles a year. He was selected for a five-year term as editor-in-chief through a peer-nomination process that included a recommendation from the outgoing editor, Christian Grov of the City University of New York, and interviews with representatives of Springer Nature, the journal’s publisher.

“The previous editor did an incredible job of building up the journal, and he increased the number of submissions,” Holloway said. “I’m grateful to Dr. Grov for all of his hard work and look forward to continuing to grow the journal in terms of its impact in the real world beyond the ivory tower.”

 

Manville on Airbnb Boom, Affordable Housing

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The New York Times spoke to Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville for a story about local restrictions on Airbnb and other short-term rental companies. Limits on short-term rentals, usually defined as a stay of 30 days or fewer, are often framed as a way to maintain affordable housing in California, but some local officials are revisiting these rules after demand for the rentals exploded during the pandemic. Manville noted that if communities are truly interested in affordability for renters, “there’s a solution to that: build more housing.” He added, “If you believe that the available supply influences the price renters face, the surest way to address that is to build apartments. The most uncertain way is to limit short-term rentals.”

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Terriquez on Mobilizing Young Latino Voters

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A Sacramento Bee article on efforts to mobilize Latino voters ahead of the fall midterm elections featured California Freedom Summer, an outreach effort led by Urban Planning Professor Veronica Terriquez, director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. California Freedom Summer promotes the engagement of youth to increase overall voter turnout. College students trained in the spring are spending the summer mentoring other youth leaders. In the weeks leading up to the Nov. 8 midterms, when Latino turnout could be critical in determining the outcome of several California races, they will participate in bilingual and bicultural workshops and other community events. “We know that young people get together around culture, around the arts, and they’re excited to build community,” Terriquez said.

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UCLA Teams Up With LADWP for Equitable Energy Solutions

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More than 20 UCLA faculty and researchers have entered into a $2.6 million agreement to conduct research for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to help the city achieve its goal of producing all of its energy from carbon-free and renewable energy sources by 2035 and doing so in ways that benefit all Angelenos equitably. The Luskin Center for Innovation, Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and Latino Policy and Politics Institute are among several UCLA research entities collaborating with the LADWP’s LA100 Equity Strategies, which will guide the department as it creates the first justice-focused, carbon-free energy transition of any major city. The effort builds upon interdisciplinary work already being done across campus, including the Center for Innovation’s research on energy affordability. “It takes careful intent to ensure that the costs associated with the transition to renewable energy get translated equitably through rates, and to protect low-income households in disadvantaged communities from bearing too much of that cost,” said Gregory Pierce, co-director of the center. “Historically, sustainability investments have not been equitable, so in some ways this project is trying to tackle that transition.” Recommendations from Pierce’s team could include enhanced rate discounts, speeding up energy efficiency and solar programs, and adjusting what criteria would trigger the shutoff of a household’s water or energy if it falls behind on payments. The university’s participation was made possible through an existing agreement between the LADWP and the UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge. — Jonathan Van Dyke

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Preparing for a Future of Rising Heat

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News media covering this summer’s record high temperatures have highlighted climate research by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Fox40 News spoke to Rae Spriggs, the center’s climate action research manager, about a new heat mapping tool that allows Californians to visualize where and who will be most affected by severe temperatures. The California Healthy Places index was developed by the Center for Innovation and the Public Health Alliance of Southern California. The Hill spoke to center co-director V. Kelly Turner and graduate student researcher Emma French, co-authors of a study showing that major U.S. cities are unprepared to deal with the challenge of extreme heat. “If cities are not painting a complete picture of heat — how chronic it is and its disparate impacts on the ground — we’re not going to be able to fully protect residents, and we could end up exacerbating existing social and environmental injustices,” said French, an urban planning doctoral student.

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Keum Wins Grant to Study Link Between Online Racism, Tobacco Product Use

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Assistant Professor of Social Welfare Brian Keum has received a grant from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program to study links between online racism and high rates of smoking among Black young adults. The three-year grant of more than $775,000 will also support Keum’s partnership with the California Youth Advocacy Network to conduct community- and campus-based anti-racism advocacy programs. Keum, director of the Health, Identities, Inequality and Technology Lab at UCLA Luskin, conducts research focusing on reducing health and mental health disparities among marginalized and oppressed individuals and communities. His research team has collected preliminary data indicating that depression and anxiety associated with exposure to racist victimization and content online is a significant factor in smoking and vaping behaviors among Black young adults, who have the second-highest smoking rate among racial minority groups in California. “Our study aims to expand the current understanding of racism-related tobacco product use among Black emerging adults by focusing on online racism,” Keum said. Given the everyday influence of social media, online interactions can increase exposure to racially charged content, leading to rumination, vigilance and trauma associated with a host of mental health and problematic substance use issues, he explained. “With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the anti-Black racial tragedies and violence across the U.S., there is an emerging public health concern that this substance-related coping may be further exacerbated,” he said. The Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program uses tobacco taxes to fund research that informs public policy and improves care for Californians stricken with tobacco-related diseases.