NIMHD DSS: Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, Ph.D., MPA-URP

Presentation Objectives:

• Introduce the Child Opportunity Index (COI), a measure of children's neighborhood environment, and discuss its applications to measure neighborhood social determinants of health and racial/ethnic equity.
• Present examples of applications of the COI for measuring and addressing health equity in health research, public health, and the health care sector (e.g., community health needs assessments).
• Discuss extensions of the Child Opportunity Index such as new data on historic neighborhood redlining practices and their potential applications to health equity.

Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, Ph.D., MPA-URP, is the Samuel F. and Rose B. Gingold Professor of Human Development and Social Policy, and Director of the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University.

Her research focuses on the social determinants of racial/ethnic inequities in health (e.g. residential segregation, neighborhood inequality, immigrant adaptation); the role of social policies in reducing those inequities (e.g. housing policy, anti-poverty policy, immigrant policy); and the health and wellbeing of children with special needs and their families.

Dr. Acevedo-Garcia is project director for diversitydatakids.org, a comprehensive research program and indicator database on child well-being, opportunity and equity by race/ethnicity across multiple sectors and geographies, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She is also the principal investigator for Including Children of Immigrants in the Post-Pandemic Economic Recovery Efforts and Safety Net, a project funded by a Rapid Response Research Award from the W.T. Grant Foundation and the Spencer Foundation.

Dr. Acevedo-Garcia holds a doctorate in public affairs with a concentration in demography and a master’s in public affairs and urban and regional planning from Princeton University. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in public administration from El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico. Go to Dr. Acevedo-Garcia’s full bio

Additional Information

• The seminar will be videocast and available in the NIH Video archives and on the NIMHD website after the presentation.
• Sign language interpreters will be provided upon request.
• Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate should contact Edgar Dews (phone: 301-402-1366) or the Federal Relay at 1-800-877-8339 at least five business days before the event.