For the Sake of All: Advancing Systemic Changes to Promote Healthy School Environments: Research, development, and dissemination of a toolkit that facilitates inclusive, healthy school environments
Regional Scan and Strategies for Community Engagement in Health, Housing, and Community Development: A scan of community engagement efforts and strategies in the City of Richmond and Counties of Chesterfield and Henrico, with recommendations for future engagement endeavors
Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959-2017: A study examining trends in life expectancy and mortality rates among all 50 states, from 1959 through 2017. Study results were published in a special communication by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), November 26, 2019, and found increases in mortality rates for 35 different causes and continued declines in life expectancy.
Education and Health Calculator: An interactive online tool to estimate how many deaths would be averted if states or counties had higher education rates. Funded in 2007 as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Commission to Build a Healthier America.
Project on Societal Distress: The Center's flagship project, completed in 2011. An initiative that documented the prevalence of societal distress in the United States across five domains: food security, housing, health, education, and income. Data on the United States and three states—Michigan, Mississippi, and New Mexico—are provided.
Place Matters: A series of reports examining the relationship between place and health in eight communities across the United States. Completed in 2011, the reports examined how health is influenced by demographic, social, and economic conditions of importance to each community.
County Health Calculator: (Tool no longer available) An online simulation tool released in 2011 to explore how health is associated with education and income, and other social determinants of health. By manipulating a slider bar, the user can examine how mortality and the rates and costs of diabetes would be affected if more favorable socioeconomic conditions existed.
Richmond Community Needs Assessment: An assessment of community priorities in the East End of Richmond, Virginia, conducted by the Engaging Richmond team and Richmond Promise Neighborhood using community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods.
Health Impact Assessment: Poultry Litter-to-Energy Facility in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia: A comprehensive assessment of the direct and indirect health consequences of placing an energy facility in a rural agricultural community poultry litter management that are of most important to health, including recommendations to maximize health outcomes.
The California Poverty Study: A mixed-methods study to understand “outlier” census tracts in California, communities with higher life expectancy than would be predicted based on their poverty rate and other social conditions (e.g., poverty) present in the area, and explain those factors which may contribute to the unexpectedly positive outcomes. The goal is to identify community assets that enhance population health.
Health Impact Assessment: Implications of Reduced Food Stamp Eligibility: A rapid-cycle assessment prepared for Congress as it deliberated reauthorization of the 2013 Farm Bill and the health consequences of weakening the SNAP program. The report provided estimates of potential effects of legislative proposal on mortality and the cost of diabetes care in the United States as a result of the proposed legislation.
The Connecting the Dots Initiative: A research and outreach effort to raise awareness among leaders in government and the private sector about the important connections between health and social factors such as education, income, neighborhood, and community.
The Cost of Firearms Violence: Community-engaged research exploring the social and psychological consequences of firearms violence across community and family networks.
Northside Parental Engagement Study: Qualitative study to identify priorities for middle school students during out-of-school time and make recommendations for continued parental engagement in the study school and Richmond Public Schools.
Educational and Health Outcomes: Neighborhood and Individual Mediators: A secondary data analysis, testing the relationship between education and child health outcomes. Includes a multivariate analysis based on a literature-based conceptual model, and adapted models incorporating predictors suggested by the Engaging Richmond team.
Bringing Best Practices to Housing Redevelopment: Planning proactively to enhance the health outcomes of housing redevelopment in Richmond, Virginia, and implementing strategies to improve the health of residents.
Informed Neighbors Corps: A group of community leaders and residents at a local public housing development working to promote a transparent and resident-centered redevelopment of public housing in the Church Hill North area of Richmond, Virginia.
Income and Health Initiative: A series of issue briefs and an interactive online visual tool on the relationship between income, wealth, and health designed to unpack this complex relationship and offer evidence-based policy recommendations. A collaboration with the Urban Institute.
San Diego Big Data Demonstration Project: An initiative to test how the application of computational modeling to large data sets (“big data”) can support public health and social policy in San Diego, California and explore whether decisions made by the community can benefit from advanced methods in the display, analysis, and modeling of local data spanning health care, public health, social service, the environment, and other domains.
Strengthening Early Childhood Programming in Richmond: A project, led by the City of Richmond, Office of Community Wealth Building, to support continued work toward a stronger system of early childhood development and education in Richmond. The VCU Center on Society and Health, in partnership with Engaging Richmond, will provide community-engaged research support to guide policymakers in decisions affecting Richmond's overall system of early childhood development.
Richmond Health Equity Report: A report examining social determinants of health in metropolitan Richmond, utilizing data from a variety of sources, and including findings from research conducted by Engaging Richmond. The report was released in April, 2016.
Community Conversations: An effort to collect community-level data through multiple “community conversations” in the city of Richmond, VA in order to better understand civic engagement and volunteering at the local level.
Volunteerism in the East End: A study aiming to contribute to knowledge about the processes and impact of volunteering by examining the characteristics of neighborhoodâbased and regional volunteers and organizations in Richmond, Virginia’s East End neighborhood.
Community Vital Signs: A proof-of-concept pilot at 12 primary care practices in Fairfax, VA to integrate clinical and population-level data so that family physicians may identify patients who reside in disadvantaged communities and document how this knowledge influences their care of these patients.
General Electric: Work with General Electric involving an expert advisory panel to provide guidance on priority areas where the business community can achieve meaningful impact on community health and wellbeing.
Community-Engaged Approach to Reducing Pediatric Asthma Disparities in Richmond: A community-engaged approach to reducing pediatric asthma disparities in Richmond, focusing on conducting a needs assessment to develop a multi-level, culturally tailored asthma intervention.
Mortality Studies: An analysis of mortality trends in California, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, and Virginia, with a special focus on specific causes driving increases in mortality, the characteristics of places in which mortality is increasing, and stress-related conditions, such as deaths from suicide, drug overdoses, and cardiovascular disease.