Posts

Panofsky Named to Class of 2020 Carnegie Fellows

/in /by

Associate Professor of Public Policy Aaron Panofsky has been named a 2020 Carnegie Fellow, the Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced. Panofsky, who also holds appointments in sociology and society and genetics at UCLA, is among a class of 27 fellows nationwide — 14 from public institutions — to be honored. Panofsky was selected from among more than 300 nominations submitted to the philanthropic foundation established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911. The Carnegie Fellows program, now in its sixth year, provides a $200,000 stipend designed to allow recipients to devote up to two years to significant research and writing. The award will support Panofsky’s work on a forthcoming book titled, “Unjust Malaise: Race in the Fog of Genetics.” Panofsky’s main research interest is in the sociology of science and knowledge with a special focus on genetics. His first book, “Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics,” published in 2014, analyzed the causes and consequences of controversy in the rapidly growing field. In his new book, Panofsky will demonstrate that, as the public and scholars have appealed to the science of genetics to define race and explain racial inequalities in health, behavior and social success, the results have been confusing and ambiguous. “Ambiguity is baked into the science itself, not just its public interpretations,” Panofsky said. His research explores genetic domains such as racial definition, behavioral research, ancestry and identity, and population health.

Nelson Is Recognized During Women’s Conference in Bangladesh

/0 Comments/in /by

Barbara Nelson, former dean of the School of Public Affairs at UCLA and professor emerita of public policy, social welfare, urban planning and political science, received recognition at the 2020 International Women’s Day Conference held at Dhaka University in Bangladesh in March for her award-winning 1994 study, “Women and Politics Worldwide.” Nelson co-edited the book with Najma Chowdhury, a professor in Women and Gender Studies at Dhaka whose lifetime achievements were also honored at the conference. They studied 43 countries and territories focusing on women’s political engagement in state organizations and civil society. In 1995, the book won the American Political Science Association’s Victoria Schuck Award for the best book on women and politics. Nelson’s 12-year tenure as dean ended in 2008. She was invited to speak in Bangladesh about the book and her collaboration with Chowdhury but was unable to attend because of travel restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Her address was delivered on her behalf at the conference.

Participation in 2020 U.S. Census Is Falling Behind UCLA analysis shows the current rate of response is at least 11 percentage points lower than in 2010

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , , , , , /by

By Les Dunseith

The national response rate to the U.S. Census is lagging well behind where it was at a similar point a decade ago, according to an analysis spearheaded by Paul Ong, a research professor and director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge.

Ong said shutdown orders related to the novel coronavirus pandemic seem to be a factor in suppressing the response rate, which is now at least 11 percentage points lower than it was for the 2010 census through late April.

The UCLA researchers noted that the self-response phase of the current census began March 12, which happened to coincide with mandated restrictions on gatherings and physical movements imposed in the state of Washington by Gov. Jay Inslee — some of the earliest such rules in the nation. His order also closed all schools in the three counties most affected by the coronavirus at the time.

Within a week, even more extreme physical distancing measures were in effect in states such as Washington, California and New York — and soon throughout the nation — as public officials ordered businesses to close and citizens to remain at home in an attempt to slow the advance of COVID-19.

Paul Ong is director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin. Photo by UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

“April 1 was designated as Census Day in an effort to highlight the importance of a complete and accurate count of American citizens,” said Ong, who has served as an adviser to the U.S. Census Bureau as part of his scholarly activities at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. “But that designation proved to be ceremonial at best, drawing little media notice or public attention with the vast majority of Americans hunkered down at home as a result of the shelter-in-place strategy.”

Ong said his findings are worrisome and seemingly at odds with the positive message coming from the Census Bureau. A bureau email blast sent in late April, for example, declared “an important milestone in the 2020 Census. More than half of all the households in the country have responded — that’s 77,500,000 households so far!”

Ong said crossing the halfway mark in the census count is less impressive when one looks below the surface. He noted, for example, that on April 18, the New York Times reported that the COVID-19 crisis had seriously hampered the response to the census, causing the Census Bureau to adjust its timeline and prolong the collection process to counter any shortfalls. The agency had earlier extended deadlines to complete its operations.

“The adjustments are framed and justified as necessary to protect the health of census workers and the public, which is obviously valid and prudent,” Ong said. “But nothing was mentioned about the need to extend census operations because of any possible lack of progress.”

The 2020 census is the first to allow people to respond online, by phone or by mail, while the 2010 census was limited to mail responses only.

In its analysis, the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge compared the overall response rate so far to the mail-in rate at the same point for the 2010 census. The researchers looked at both the 2010 mail-response rate — the total number of filled-in and returned forms divided by the total number of addresses in the government’s master address file — and the mail-return rate, the number of returned forms divided only by the number deliverable and non-vacant addresses.

 

When the three measures are plotted on a graph, it is apparent that a slowdown in 2020 census responses coincides with the timing of the COVID-19 crisis. By March 22, the 2020 rate had slipped below the rate of return for both of the 2010 measures and has continued to lag since then. Since April 24, the date of the email blast from the Census Bureau, the 2020 response rate has never gotten closer than 11 percentage points below both of the 2010 measures, the UCLA analysis shows.

The researchers note that because the 2010 mail-return rate has a smaller denominator, it has a higher value than the 2010 mail-response rate. According to the Census Bureau, the 2010 mail-response is more compatible with how the 2020 response rate is being calculated.

Besides the COVID-19 pandemic, other factors may be hindering 2020 responses, Ong said. Those barriers may include a lack of access to the internet, which is the primary mode of data collection for the 2020 census; a nationwide increase in vacant and seasonal housing; and the growth of the historically harder-to-reach Hispanic population.

The decennial census is required so that congressional seats can be reapportioned to account for geographic shifts in the population. The official count is also used for redrawing electoral district boundaries for congressional, state legislative and local jurisdictions. Equally important, the numbers are used in allocating public funds and helping to provide a clearer picture of the nation’s population and housing stock.

Unless steps are taken immediately to boost response rates, Ong is worried that the 2020 census is experiencing “a real and present danger of having one of the most incomplete census enumerations in history.”

Based on historical precedent, the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge analysis predicts that an undercount would disproportionately affect low-income residents, people of color and immigrants.

“The Census Bureau is not to be blamed for the dire circumstances that have upended everyone’s life,” Ong said. “What is required now, however, is mobilizing community organizations and groups to work collaboratively with public agencies to minimize the damage. We need to focus scarce resources to do everything in our power to ensure inclusion in the census of society’s most marginalized people and neighborhoods.”

Questions about the study may be directed to Paul Ong at pmong@ucla.edu

To inquire about the proprietary data used to build the chart, contact Les Dunseith at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, ldunseith@luskin.ucla.edu

Virtual Conference Shines Light on Women’s Transit Safety Issues New UCLA report on transit safety of college students is released during InterActions LA

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

By Lauren Hiller

A new UCLA study found that being a woman, identifying as LGBTQI, having a long commute, or waiting in poorly lit areas significantly increased the likelihood of being sexually harassed on public transit.

In the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies report, “Transit Safety Among University Students,” Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning and researchers sought to better understand the characteristics of individuals and circumstances that increased their risk of harassment during their public transit journeys.

Professor Loukaitou-Sideris reported the findings during the Lewis Center’s April 3 InterActions LA conference, which brought together researchers, transit agencies and community activists around the topic of women’s safety in transportation.

The study surveyed 1,284 students from UCLA and the California State University campuses of Los Angeles and Northridge. According to the report, this population was chosen because university students are typically more transit-dependent than the general public, and because their young age may make them more vulnerable to victimization. Los Angeles was one of numerous cities studied as part of a global research project.

Much of the preexisting data on perceived safety and incidents of sexual harassment on transit in Los Angeles did not identify such characteristics as gender, sexuality and race. This study also uniquely delved into when in the course of a transit journey — walking to or from a station, waiting for the bus or train, or on the actual vehicle — sexual harassment occurred.

According to the study, 72% of respondents experienced some form of harassment on a bus, compared to 48% on rail, with women experiencing far more numerous instances than men. However, very few students (10%) reported the experience to either law enforcement or transit agencies. And more than half of women reported changing how they dressed or adjusting their travel patterns, such as riding only during daytime or waiting in well-lit areas.

Because women make up more than half of transit riders in the United States, Loukaitou-Sideris said it’s imperative to prioritize their safety.

“Their safety is an important concern that we need to tackle if we want to have more women riding transit and — for women who are already captive transit riders — riding transit more comfortably and without fear,” she said. “I think everyone deserves that in our transit systems.”

Safe Transit During COVID-19

The challenges that women and vulnerable populations face have only been magnified by the current COVID-19 crisis. Under statewide and local “safer at home” orders, it is frequently low-income women of color who are still traveling to work to provide essential services to the rest of the region, according to the other panelists at the InterActions event, including speakers from Pueblo Planning, Los Angeles Walks and Alliance for Community Transit-Los Angeles (ACT-LA).

“COVID-19 has revealed that our transit system is a lifeline,” said Mariana Huerta Jones, senior coalition and communications manager at ACT-LA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring equitable access to public transit infrastructure and funds.

During the InterActions presentation, Huerta Jones said public transit is often the only transportation option available to low-income residents working in jobs deemed essential in industries such as grocery stores, hospitals and sanitation.

Ensuring Women’s Safety

Other InterActions speakers like Monique López, founder and social justice planner at Pueblo Planning, spoke about the importance of including the voices of marginalized communities when crafting policy recommendations. And Daisy Villafuerte, advocacy and engagement manager from Los Angeles Walks, discussed grassroots efforts to improve transit experiences.

Presenting the next steps from LA Metro’s recent “Understanding How Women Travel” report, Meghna Khanna, senior director of the Countywide Planning and Development Department, and her team found that safety is still the biggest concern and barrier to riding transit for all women riders. While 60% of women felt safe traveling on Metro during the day, that number decreased to 20% at night.

Khanna and her team at LA Metro found that women frequently mentioned increased police presence as a solution that would help them feel safer on transit; however, not all transit riders agree.

“For many people of our community, more police doesn’t mean more safety. It can actually mean the opposite. It can mean racial profiling, harassment, criminalizing of poor or houseless individuals,” Huerta Jones said.

Solutions beyond policing — such as increased service frequency, improved cleanliness around stations, and the presence of non-police transit ambassadors — are just first steps in ensuring women can use transit without fear.

View a video about transit safety:

Astor Honored With AERA Research Award

/0 Comments/in /by

The American Educational Research Association has honored Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor with a Distinguished Research Award for his co-written article on the role of school-level factors in suicidal ideation in California schools, published in the Journal of Pediatrics. The article was co-written with Astor’s colleagues, Rami Benbenishty, professor emeritus at the School of Social Work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Ilan Roziner, professor at the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University. Astor holds the Marjorie Crump Chair in Social Welfare and has a joint appointment at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. He spoke about his research into suicide ideation among California students with the GSEIS publication Ampersand:

Anxiety About Coronavirus Is Widespread in L.A. County Roughly 4 in 5 residents in new UCLA Luskin survey express deep concern about the health and economic impacts of COVID-19

/1 Comment/in , , , , , , , , /by

By Les Dunseith

An overwhelming percentage (78%) of Los Angeles County residents say they are concerned that they or a member of their family will contract the novel coronavirus, according to a survey conducted between March 18 and 26 and released today by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

A solid majority (61%) of respondents expressed confidence in the response by local officials to the pandemic, but only 39% had similar confidence in the federal response.

“There are two clear takeaways,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, which conducted the survey as part of an annual project known as the Quality of Life Index, or QLI. “The anxiety levels over contracting the virus and its economic impacts are overwhelming. And it’s a vote of confidence in the local public health agencies, while a vote of no confidence in the federal response.”

The results are based on interviews conducted with about 1,500  county residents during a period that happened to coincide with the implementation of stay-at-home orders in Los Angeles.

The QLI, which is a joint project of the UCLA Luskin Los Angeles Initiative and The California Endowment, is in its fifth year. Researchers poll a cross-section of Los Angeles County residents each year to understand the public’s perception of the quality of their own lives. Full results will be released April 23 as part of a UCLA event known as the Luskin Summit, which will be held virtually this year because of the ongoing health crisis. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6%.

Respondents indicated that they were very concerned (49%), somewhat concerned (29%), not too concerned (13%) or not concerned at all (7%) that they or a member of their family would contract the novel coronavirus. Women over the age of 50 expressed the greatest concern (62% were very concerned).

When asked whether the health crisis had or will have a negative economic impact on themselves personally, more than four out of five respondents (83%) said they were concerned, with 56% saying very concerned and 27% saying somewhat concerned. Again, women expressed the most concern, although in this case it was slightly higher among women aged 18 to 49 (61%) than among women aged 50 to 64 (60%).

Two questions were asked about the response of public health and government officials to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the results were almost mirror opposites. When asked if they were confident in the response of officials in Los Angeles County, 61% of respondents said yes and 31% said no, but just 39% said yes and 55% said no when asked if they were confident in the response of officials in the federal government. These results were generally consistent among demographic and geographic groups.

“In virtually no major demographic group did we find less than a majority expressing confidence in local officials,” Yaroslavsky said.

Some of the highest marks for local officials came from those aged 50 to 74 (69%), men aged 50 to 64 (72%) and women 65 and older (70%), as well as Latinos over age 50 (70%). Residents in every L.A. County supervisorial district expressed at least 59% confidence as a whole.

Hardly any major demographic group expressed majority confidence in the federal response. The lowest confidence levels came from 18-to-39-year-olds (33%), African Americans (32%), women aged 18 to 49 (31%), those with annual incomes above $120,000 (30%), whites aged 18 to 49 (23%) and residents of the 3rd Supervisorial District (28%), which encompasses Westside communities such as Santa Monica and Malibu, plus the north and western sections of the San Fernando Valley.

The QLI was prepared in partnership with the public opinion research firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates.

UCLA Researchers Lead Coronavirus Transportation Response Research projects related to the health crisis will be fast-tracked for funding by the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and partners

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , , /by

By Claudia Bustamante

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies will fast-track funding for research projects related to COVID-19 and its effects on public health, the economy and transportation, with those submissions due by April 19 and funding to be dispersed by June.

As part of its research goals for the next fiscal year, UCLA ITS and sister institutes at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC Irvine pivoted priorities to investigate the effect of the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 on transportation in the United States. This quick adjustment will allow researchers across the University of California system to collaborate and harness their collective expertise in transportation engineering, planning and policy.

Transportation and transit use have rapidly shifted in the country due to social distancing recommendations, shelter-in-place restrictions, quarantines and other mitigation efforts meant to slow the spread of the virus.

The collective UC Institute of Transportation Studies will prioritize research projects:

  • looking into the response to the public health emergency, including the mobility needs of essential workers and vital goods;
  • the capacity of both the private and public sectors to meet transportation needs during the crisis;
  • the substitution of technology-enabled access for mobility in response to movement limitations.

It will also fund projects focused on the recovery of transportation services and systems when this public health emergency ebbs, including coping with the backlog of goods and people movement.

Brian Taylor, chair of UC ITS, said the California Legislature and executive branches, as well as regional and local governments and agencies, have come to rely on the statewide institute’s expertise and assistance in times of need.

“We aim to produce research that meaningfully informs public officials in making critical, and sometimes difficult, decisions about California’s transportation systems,” he said. “Now more than ever, UC ITS is committed to supporting the state with data and research to help it respond to and recover from the effects of this terrible pandemic in the weeks, months and years ahead.”

Taylor also serves as director of the UCLA branch and a professor of urban planning and public policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Established by the California Legislature in 1947, UC ITS funds about 50 research projects a year that cover a wide variety of topics, including congestion management, performance evaluation for state transportation programs and policies, climate change mitigation strategies, micromobility like scooters and bike share, among others. Over the past 25 years, the four ITS branches collectively have formed one of the world’s preeminent university transportation research centers.

The institute’s annual research program will divvy up about $800,000 among projects tied to state-established priorities, including the COVID-19 response and other topics related to transportation and housing, transportation equity, innovative mobility, travel behavior, aviation, safety, and active transportation.

More information about the COVID-19 response and recovery solicitation is available here.

UCLA Luskin Represents at TRB Annual Meeting

/0 Comments/in /by

UCLA Luskin faculty and students were well represented at January’s Transportation Research Board annual meeting in Washington, D.C., and much of their research was highlighted on Streetsblog USA’s Talking Headways podcast. Brian Taylor, professor of urban planning and director of the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), and MURP student Yu Hong Hwang presented an updated analysis of the standard for setting speed limits, which has been in place for decades. MURP student Cassie Halls spoke about her research on the impact of a bus-only lane on Los Angeles’ Flower Street; Halls’ work won “Best Master’s Student Poster Presentation” at the annual meeting. ITS postdoctoral fellow Andrew Schouten discussed his research showing a decrease in public transit use among immigrant communities, possibly due to settlement patterns and an increase in car ownership. In the first Talking Headways episode, Taylor and Hwang’s comments begin at the 1:45 minute mark and Hall’s at the 18:16 minute mark. In the second episode, Schouten’s comments begin at the 23:28 minute mark.

 

Turner Explores Environmental Benefits of New Urbanism

/0 Comments/in /by

A CNU Journal article cited Assistant Professor of Urban Planning V. Kelly Turner, one of several scholars who contributed their expertise to the publication of A Research Agenda for New Urbanism. The book highlights research needs from the social, environmental and economic sides of New Urbanism, including transportation, diversity, accessibility and theoretical foundations. Turner highlighted the impact of urbanism on microclimate as a critical area of climate research and stressed the need for “studies that evaluate the role of design in adapting to hotter urban environments.” Some environmental benefits of New Urbanism, including transit-oriented design and reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, have been well-established. However, Turner pointed out the “lack of empirical assessment of the relationship between new urbanist design and ecosystem services, climate adaptation planning and other environmental outcomes.” She recommended establishing field tests at new urban projects in the U.S. and abroad to gather valuable environmental data.

Read the article

Armenta Selected as Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar

/0 Comments/in /by

Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Amada Armenta was chosen by the Russell Sage Foundation as one of 17 visiting scholars for the 2020-2021 academic year. Armenta will pursue her research on race, ethnicity and immigration while in residence at the foundation’s headquarters in New York City starting in September. The selection of Visiting Scholars is based on an individual’s demonstrated record of research accomplishment and the merit of the proposed project. Armenta will study the legal attitudes of immigrants, focusing on how they understand and make decisions about migration, driving, working, calling the police, securing identification and paying taxes. Her research will culminate in a book analyzing the experiences of undocumented Mexican immigrants in Philadelphia. This will be Armenta’s second book, following the award-winning “Protect, Serve, and Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration Enforcement” (2017), which analyzed the role that local police and jail employees played in immigration enforcement in Nashville, Tennessee. The Russell Sage Foundation’s Visiting Scholars Program supports research into the social and behavioral sciences with the goal of improving living conditions in the United States. Research topics have included immigration, race and diversity, poverty, labor practices, gender inequality, climate change and natural disaster recovery.

Events

Nothing Found

Sorry, no posts matched your criteria