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Current
and Recent Research Projects
Current
Carbon
Footprint
Scott
Farrow (Economics) is working with a Constellation Energy team to
assist their effort to quantify the company’s carbon footprint,
which is the total amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases produced
b the company. Dr. Farrow will assist in preparing a technical report
and provide consulting services in the structure, protocol, data
quality, and integration of data for the project.
Family
Separation and Reunification as a Factor in the Educational Success
of Immigrant Children
Sara
Poggio (Modern Languages and Linquistics) and Tim Gindling (Economics)
received a grant from the Spencer Foundation to study how family
separation affects the educational success of recent Central American
and Mexican immigrant children in Baltimore.
Using
Weather-Related Closings to Identify the Impact of Schooling on
Performance
Dave
Marcotte (Public Policy) received a grant from the Spencer Foundation
to study the relationship between instructional time in school and
student achievement. He will examine student performance on Maryland's
math and reading assessment tests over a 14 year period to determine
if test scores are related to snow and subsequent school closings.
The
Mental Health Treatment Study
David Salkever (Public Policy) is participating,
with research firm Westat, Dartmouth University, and the University
of Texas in a nationwide experiment to help people with mental disorders
get back to work. Funded by the Social Security Administration,
the study will provide new and improved services to Social Security
Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries with a primary impairment
of schizophrenia or affective disorder in 22 sites across the country.
Beneficiaries with mental disorders are a particular concern to
the Social Security Administration because these individuals face
significant barriers in returning to work and because they often
become disabled as young adults and remain on the SSDI rolls for
many years. The study will enroll and follow 3,000 study participants
through 2010. Dr. Salkever will have responsibility for evaluating
the experiment.
Economic
Evaluation of Home Health Outcomes of Expanded Home Health Aid Roles
David
Salkever (Public Policy) is collaborating with lead investigator
Catherine Kelleher at the University of Maryland, Baltimore School
of Nursing and with co-investigators at Johns Hopkins on a study
that is one component of a randomized trial of expanded roles for
home health aids in working with persons with chronic health problems.
The overall project will examine health outcomes as well cost implications
of training aids to function as disease management coaches based
on the model of community health worker programs for the chronically
ill. Funding is provided through a grant from the Agency for Healthcare
Quality and Research (AHRQ) in the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services.
Evaluation
of the Medical House Calls Program
David Salkever (Public Policy) is directing
a multi-faceted evaluation of the Medical House Calls Program for
the Washington Hospital Center . Through the program, a health care
team brings medical care to elders in their home. The evaluation
will focus on economic outcomes but will also focus on non-economic
measures.
Long
Term Care of Working Age Adults
Nancy
Miller (PUBL) received a grant from the University of California
San Francisco to work with them on a project for the U.S. Department
of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation
Research. Dr. Miller is studying working age individuals who receive
long term care in a nursing home, the circumstances that lead to
their nursing home admission, and the factors that influence their
ability to return to the community.
Assistance
to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
MIPAR administers grants for different agencies
in the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH).
They are: Office of Maternal and Child Health; AIDS Administration;
Center for Preventive Health Services; Office of Health Promotion,
Education, and Tobacco Use Prevention; Office of Health Policy and
Planning; Maryland Health Emergency Preparedness and Response; Office
of Immunization, Office of Genetics and Children with Special Health
Care Needs. These grants assist the DHMH agencies to administer
projects and conduct research. They also provide funding to support
approximately 10 UMBC graduate research assistants and provide opportunities
for faculty and graduate students to become involved in DHMH projects
and utilize DHMH databases for research.
Recent
Earning
Effects of Education at Community Colleges
Dave
Marcotte (PUBL) conducted two research projects for the on community
college education for the American Educational Research Association.
The first project used the National Education Longitudinal Survey
to examine the economic returns to enrollment in community colleges.
In the second project, Dr. Marcotte analyzed data from the National
Household Education Survey to study recent changes in the amount
and type of career-related education workers choose after entering
the labor force.
Meta-Analysis
of Welfare-to-Work Programs
Dr. David Greenberg
(ECON) received a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, Administration for Children and Families, to study welfare-to-work
programs in order to determine the types of programs that are most
effective; the sorts of welfare recipients for whom they are most
effective; and the economic conditions under which they are most
effective. Dr. Greenberg works with the Centre for Research in Social
Policy at Loughborough University in England.
Evaluation
of the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey Program
Marvin
Mandell, Nancy Miller, and David Marcotte (all PUBL) received a
grant from the Delmarva Foundation to evaluate the Medicare Health
Outcomes Survey (HOS) Program being conducted by the Centers of
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The goal of the HOS Program
is to gather valid and reliable health status data in Medicare managed
care for use in quality improvement activities, public reporting,
plan accountability, and improving health outcomes. Nathaniel Jones
(MIPAR) is the Project Director.
Private
Costs of Long Term Care
Nancy Miller (PUBL) received funding
from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation to conduct a study of
long-term care costs for patients and their families. The project
addressed: how private rates compare to Medicare and Medicaid rates
for the same services; how costs vary by service type; how costs
vary across urban, suburban, and rural locations; and what costs
and services are typically excluded from assisted living programs.
The
Economic Returns to Education at Community Colleges
David Marcotte (PUBL) received
a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation for a project to examine
the economic return to education at community colleges. Using new
data on more than 12,000 students who graduated from high school
in 1992, Dr. Marcotte studied the effect of enrollment in sub baccalaureate
institutions and degrees earned in those institutions on subsequent
earnings and employment. The best research to date on this subject
relies on data from the 1980s. Because of substantial and rapid
changes in the labor market and in education, this project contributed
important new information to our understanding of the role of community
college education in shaping economic well-being.
Grassroots
Digital Government Project
Donald F. Norris (MIPAR and
PUBL) received a grant from the Digital Government program of the
National ScienceFoundation to examine barriers to local government
adoption of digital government in the US. He also explored strategies
and tactics that city and county governments have successfully employed
to overcome those barriers and adopt digital government. The Office
of Telecommunications and Information Applications in the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration of the US Commerce
Department was his federal partner in this research.
Corporate
Citizenship and Urban Governance
Donald Norris (MIPAR) and Royce Hanson
(CUERE) were awarded a grant from the National Center for the Revitalization
of Central Cities to examine how the restructuring of the Baltimore
economy and the region's business institutions affected the character
of business engagement in civic affairs. It traces the evolution
of ownership, employment, location, income, charitable and civic
activity of the largest private and nonprofit organizations in the
Baltimore region. Economic Policy Analysis graduate student, Brian
Gordon, assisted on this project.
Digest of the Social Experiments
David Greenberg (ECON) was awarded a grant from the W.E. Upjohn
Institute for Employment Research to create a supplement to his
previous work, entitled Digest of the Social Experiments. The previous
work had listed and described 143 social experiments. In social
experiments, individuals or households are randomly assigned to
two or more treatment and control groups. The effects of the policy
being tested are determined by comparing the several groups in terms
of outcomes. The supplement will provide summaries of approximately
50 experiments not included in the existing Digest.
Evaluation
of Alternative Dispute Resolution Programs in Maryland
Marvin Mandell (PUBL) conducted this
research project for the Administrative Office of the Courts, Maryland
Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission. The goals of the project
were to: conduct preliminary evaluations of selected alternative
dispute resolution programs in Maryland; and develop systems for
continuing evaluation of such programs. Dr. Mandell wasassisted
by Public Policy graduate research assistant, Kate Goddard.
National
Multiple Sclerosis Society, Maryland Chapter Member Survey
Donald Norris (MIPAR and PUBL) and
Joseph Kirchner (MIPAR) conducted a member survey for the Maryland
Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The survey measured
members' needs and satisfaction with the services provided by the
Society. Drs. Norris and Kirchner were assisted by graduate research
assistants Larry Johnson and Laura Hudgins.
Participation and Outcome Patterns in Post Secondary Occupational
Education
David Marcotte (PUBL) received a
subcontract to work with researchers at Columbia University to carry
out the Congressionally mandated National Assessment of Vocational
Education. This work is funded by the U.S. Department ofEducation.
This research is intended to both describe the characteristics of
post secondary vocational students and their paths of study and
work, and to identify the outcomes of post-secondary vocational
education.
Public
School Financing
Joseph Kirchner and Donald Norris
(MIPAR) conducted an analysis of public school funding for the city
of Bowie, Maryland. The objective of the study was to determine
whether an equitable distribution of resources among the schools
was found when comparing schools located in Bowie with those located
outside of Bowie.
Baltimore and Its Region in National Perspective
Donald Norris (MIPAR and PUBL)
and Hal Wolman (George Washington University), were awarded a grant
from the Abell Foundation for a project to examine issues facing
Baltimore City and the Baltimore metropolitan area. Chapters focusing
on particular issues were written by local scholars and by Drs.
Norris and Wolman. On May 19, 2000, Drs. Norris and Wolman hosted
a conference at which the chapter authors presented their findings
and recommendations to an audience of representatives from Baltimore
area advocacy groups, local government officials, and other interested
parties.
Depression
and Retirement Among Older Workers
Dave Marcotte (Public Policy), along
with a colleague at Northern Illinois University, conducted a research
project funded by a grant from the AARP/Andrus Foundation to examine
the effects of depression on retirement behavior. Their aim was
to identify the prevalence of depression among older Americans as
they approach and enter into retirement, and to disentangle the
complicated relationship between the two. Graduate research assistant,
Sherawanda Watkins-Esuke, assisted with this research.
Employment Intervention Demonstration Program
David Marcotte (PUBL) is working
with researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago on a multi-site
experiment to assess the effects and costs of innovative models
of combining vocational rehabilitation with clinical services and
supports to enhance employment opportunities and the quality of
life for mentally ill adults. The experiment is being run at eight
sites, in Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas, and is funded by a large
grant from the Center for Mental Health Services of the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services. Graduate research assistant, Sherawanda
Watkins-Esuke, assisted with this research.
A Growth Indicators and Reporting System for Measuring Achievement
of the Goals of Maryland's Smart Growth Policy
Royce Hanson (PUBL) received funding
for this project from the Morris Goldseker Foundation in Baltimore.
The project's objectives were to develop a set of outcome indicators
of environmental quality and community well being for Maryland and
its local communities. Dr. Hanson was assisted by graduate research
assistant, Jason Freihage.
Meta-analysis
of Voluntary Government Training Programs
David Greenberg (ECON) conducted
a meta-analysis of government training programs for the disadvantaged
funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The objective of this research
was to increase knowledge of the types of government training programs
that are most effective, the sorts of persons for whom they are
most effective, and the circumstances under which they are most
effective.
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