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Refugees welcome? Understanding the regional heterogeneity of anti-refugee hate crime

June 8, 2023

In this article, we examine anti-refugee hate crime in the wake of the large influx of refugees to Germany in 2014 and 2015. By exploiting institutional features of the assignment of refugees to German regions, we estimate the impact of unexpected and sudden large-scale immigration on hate crime against refugees. Results indicate that it is not simply the size of local refugee inflows which drives the increase in hate crime, but rather the combination of refugee arrivals and latent anti-refugee sentiment. We show that ethnically homogeneous areas, areas which experienced hate crimes in the 1990s, and areas with high support for the Nazi party in the Weimar Republic, are more prone to respond to the arrival of refugees with incidents of hate crime against this group. Our results highlight the importance of regional anti-immigration sentiment in the analysis of the incumbent population's reaction to immigration.

How Nonprofits and NGOs Can Get Real Value from Strategic Planning

June 1, 2023

Strategy is all about getting critical resource decisions right. The strategic planning process is a rare chance for a nonprofit's leaders to step back and look at their organization and its activities as a whole—to understand what success looks like and to allocate time, talent, and dollars to the activities that can help achieve it.When strategic planning is done well, it not only clarifies the path forward for teams and stakeholders, but also informs resourcing decisions and sets in motion key organizational changes. To be sure, it doesn't always go well; we expect some readers may have had negative experiences with strategic planning. The practical advice we offer in this article will help leaders avoid the pitfalls and get real value from the process.

Primary and reproductive healthcare access and use among reproductive aged women and female family planning patients in 3 states

May 24, 2023

Public funding plays a key role in reducing cost barriers to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care in the United States. In this analysis, we examine sociodemographic and healthcare seeking profiles of individuals in three states where public funding for health services has recently changed: Arizona, Iowa, and Wisconsin. In addition, we examine associations between individuals' health insurance status and whether they experienced delays or had trouble in obtaining their preferred contraception. This descriptive study draws on data collected between 2018 to 2021 in two distinct cross-sectional surveys in each state, one among a representative sample of female residents aged 18–44 and the other among a representative sample of female patients ages eighteen and older seeking family planning services at healthcare sites that receive public funding to deliver this care. The majority of reproductive-aged women and female family planning patients across states reported having a personal healthcare provider, had received at least one SRH service in the preceding 12 months, and were using a method of birth control. Between 49–81% across groups reported receiving recent person-centered contraceptive care. At least one-fifth of each group reported wanting healthcare in the past year but not getting it, and between 10–19% reported a delay or trouble getting birth control in the past 12 months. Common reasons for these outcomes involved cost and insurance-related issues, as well as logistical ones. Among all populations except Wisconsin family planning clinic patients, those with no health insurance had greater odds of being delayed or having trouble getting desired birth control in the past 12 months than those with health insurance. These data serve as a baseline to monitor access and use of SRH services in Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa in the wake of drastic family planning funding shifts that changed the availability and capacity of the family planning service infrastructure across the country. Continuing to monitor these SRH metrics is critical to understand the potential effect of current political shifts.

New voter turnout data from 2022 shows some surprises, including lower turnout for youth, women, and Black Americans in some states

May 18, 2023

Perhaps the most notable finding with respect to voter turnout is that 2022 turnout rates were nearly as high as the record-setting 2018 midterm turnout rates. Yet unlike the previous midterm elections, the groups with the highest Democratic voting margins—in particular, young people, Black Americans, women, and white female college graduates—did not show greater turnout increases than other groups, and often displayed lower turnout rates than in the 2018 midterms. These groups displayed higher turnout rates than in the low-turnout 2014 midterms, but either did not match or did not improve on their 2018 turnout levels. And only a minority of states registered turnout increases between 2018 and 2022, while an even smaller number showed increases among young and nonwhite voters.Overall, the data places a somewhat new lens on the results of last November's midterms. The stronger-than-expected Democratic performance was largely due to the voting preferences of the party's favored demographic blocs that turned out to vote. But the turnout rates for these blocs—while still higher than most pre-2018 elections—either declined or did not rise since the previous midterms.

Streamlining to End Immigration Backlogs

April 20, 2023

America's legal immigration system is inefficient; the multidepartmental division of authority, duplicative reviews, antiquated technology use, outdated bureaucratic procedures, unresponsive customer service, intense and unwarranted skepticism applied to all applicants, and lack of accountability or oversight have no parallel in the federal government. These deficiencies have spawned spiraling backlogs, unimaginable wait times, lawsuits by applicants, and countless mistakes—all of which cost people time, money, and the rights to live, work, and join their families.This paper will focus on agencies other than the Department of Justice, which almost exclusively handles removal proceedings in immigration courts. The other agencies have a more significant role in legal immigration procedures.The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) handles the broadest range of requests: petitions by family or employer sponsors, work authorizations, adjustments of status inside the United States, and so on.The Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs ("State") processes applications for immigrant (or permanent) and nonimmigrant (or temporary) visas, both of which authorize travel to the United States.The Department of Labor (DOL) oversees wage and employment rules for most temporary and permanent visa programs.

'Caring for Caregivers' Model Addresses Needs of Those Looking After Others

April 17, 2023

The journal of the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA), Health Progress, has published an article, "Aging - 'Caring for Caregivers' Model Addresses Needs of Those Looking After Others," as part of its spring 2023 issue.Family caregivers in the U.S. take on around 24 hours of complex care per week. Yet, nationally, caregiver needs are severely under addressed, leading to serious health consequences for millions of caregivers. This article explains the Caring for Caregivers Model at RUSH University Medical Center, which aims to address these needs by providing skilled and emotional support for caregivers through teams of physical therapists, occupational therapists, nurses, dieticians, pharmacists, and social workers.With support from RRF Foundation for Aging, The John A. Hartford Foundation, the model is expanding as part of the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement, of which the Catholic Health Association is a founding partner.

Why the federal government needs to change how it collects data on Native Americans

March 30, 2023

This January, the White House released proposals for reclassifying racial data collection in the 2030 census. Most notably, the proposals include combining race and ethnicity into a single question, as well as creating a new racial category for Middle Eastern and North African people.While these changes are welcome and will go a long way toward helping create a more accurate picture of demographic identity in the U.S., they don't improve data representation for a group that has long been misrepresented: American Indians and Alaska Natives (here collectively referred to as "Native Americans"). In particular, the way the U.S. government currently collects, aggregates, and publishes race and ethnicity data can lead to the exclusion of more than three-quarters of Native Americans from some official data sets. These practices may bias research, contribute to negative policy impacts, and perpetuate long-standing misunderstandings about Native American populations.

“Adoption is just not for me”: How abortion patients in Michigan and New Mexico factor adoption into their pregnancy outcome decisions

March 4, 2023

In public discourses in the United States adoption is often suggested as a less objectionable, equal substitute for abortion, despite this pregnancy outcome occurring much less frequently than the outcomes of abortion and parenting. This qualitative study explores whether and how abortion patients weighed adoption as part of their pregnancy decisions and, for those who did, identifies factors that contributed to their ultimate decision against adoption.

Making Mexican History in Battle Creek Website

January 15, 2023

Educational website teaching Mexican and Latino history in Battle Creek, MI.

Supporting reproductive health among birthing persons with chronic conditions in the US: A qualitative multilevel study using systems thinking to inform action

January 11, 2023

To use systems thinking with diverse system actors to (a) characterize current problems at the intersection of chronic conditions (CCs) and reproductive health (RH) care and their determinants, (b) determine necessary system actors for change, and (c) document cross-system actions that can improve identified problems in the United States.

A roadmap toward equitable, coordinated, quality reproductive care for women with chronic conditions

October 27, 2022

This article is the opening commentary of the Special Section on Chronic Conditions and Women's Reproductive Health in Health Services Research.

Immigration Backlogs and Congressional Funding

October 6, 2022

Immigration backlogs are affecting a wide range of immigrants — asylum seekers, DACA recipients, spouses of U.S. citizens, and high-skilled immigrants in the tech industry, to name a few. Backlogs have become a systemic issue within the immigration enterprise, which we define as the five departments that address immigration through appropriations: the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, and the Department of State (DOS). As each department attempts to tackle its segment of crisis, Congress could help address it by providing additional funding to clear backlogs and alleviate pressure on the system.