In a recent report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Baltimore City was ranked as the least healthy municipality in the state of Maryland (you can find the report here). Much of this is attributable to high rates of premature death and obesity and these problems are specifically concentrated in food desert communities. While there are several definitions and variations around food deserts, it effectively means there is a lack of access to health food in the community. Food desert neighborhoods also have higher rates of poverty, higher rates of mortality from diet-related disease (like Diabetes, Heart Disease, Stroke, and Kidney Disease), and lower life expectancy. These problems are especially prevalent in the senior community, because of an additional lack of mobility. Most importantly, these diseases are frequently preventable. For more about what the food desert in Baltimore look like check out the Center for A Livable Future’s information here.

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 Each year, the Program in Latin America Studies at Hopkins provides a competitive travel grant to students interested in researching topics related to Latin America. With this grant, I traveled to Lima, Peru this past summer, where I conducted an exploratory, survey-based project looking at the development in Lima over the last 5 years. Peru has had the second highest GDP in Latin America in the last 10 years and I was curious to know more about the pueblos jóvenes (as the slums are called in Lima) and how they are experiencing the growing economy. 

Since the 1950s, Lima’s population has been growing dramatically. Between 1981 and 2007, Lima has doubled in size and now contains almost 9 million people--or 30 percent of the country’s population--within the metropolitan area. Although Latin America has been leading the pace in urbanization, the entire world is now more urban than rural as of 2007.

The trajectory of urban development in Lima is both interesting and worrisome.  Due to high demand for living near Peru’s economic hub, a lack of housing has left families resorting to invading empty public territory, sometimes on precarious land, in the periphery of the capitol city.  The lack of housing has been caused by bad public policy as a result of push back from traditional residents of Lima who did not want rural residents living in the capitol. The government also made attempts for the public sector to build homes for the poor, but building enough homes for over 2 million people is extremely difficult and costly. In the 1970s, another approach was actually pre-planning the invasions into small plazas; the result of which can be seen on Google Maps in the district of Villa El Salvador.  These strategies are no longer used.

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Instances of policy failure are often due to lack of consideration of unexpected outcomes, such as negative spillover effects, improper implementation, or corruption.  Sometimes, these outcomes can do more harm than the policy’s intended good. However, a policy’s unexpected outcomes can also benefit the society. For example, the policy of allowing businesses to operate check cashing facilities has helped satisfy the demand for unskilled labor in the construction industry to a large extent.  

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On Thursday October 18th, the Social Policy Seminar Series continued with a talk from Stephen Parente, MPH, MS, Ph.D. entitled "The Evolution of Health Care reform: Are We There Yet?" Dr. Parente is Minnesota Insurance Industry Chair of Health Finance in Carlson School of Management and the Director of the Medical Industry Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota. If you could not make it to Dr.Parente's talk, you can enjoy it virtually with his slides and an audio recording of his talk. Unfortunately due to a recording error, only the first 48 minutes of his talk were recorded.

The Social Policy Seminar Series is presented by IPS, the Department of Economics, and the Department of Health Policy and Management. Go here for a schedule of upcoming seminars.

 Are lobbyists a cancer on the political system or valuable advocates for their clients? Are they a source of corruption or are they necessary professionals making the system work? Probably my favorite session of the Policy Process course last year was when Professor Lee Drutman told us about his experience working for a US Senator and meeting with lobbyists who wanted input into the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. In his opinion, lobbyists don't have nearly as much influence as the public thinks. 

So I was very interested when I found out that the Bloomberg School of Public Health was hosting a panel of practicing lobbyists who could tell us what the profession is really like and how they view their role in the system. This panel consisted of Barbara Brocato, Robin Shaivitz, Lisa Harris Jones, Frank Boston, and Pegeen Townsend — all lobbyists working in the Maryland state government.  The moderator was Dan Morhaim, M.D., a delegate to the Maryland General Assembly who also serves on the faculty at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

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On Thursday September 20th, we kicked off the 2012-13 Social Policy Seminar Series with a talk from Ingrid Gould Ellen, Ph.D. entitled "What Explains Population Growth in Cities and Neighborhoods?" Dr. Ellen is a Professor of Public Policy and Urban Planning at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service, and co-director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Public Policy. If you could not make it to Dr. Ellen's talk, don't worry. You can experience the seminar virtually via audio recording here and Dr. Ellen's slides here.

The Social Policy Seminar Series is presented by IPS, the Department of Economics, and the Department of Health Policy and Management. Go here for a schedule of upcoming seminars. The next event on the horizon is an exciting Press and Public Policy Seminar from Adam Davidson, who writes "It's the Economy" for the New York Times Magazine and co-hosts/co-founded Planet Money on NPR. Davidson's seminar is entitled, "The Massive Gulf Between What Economists Know And Politicians Say About the Economy." Join us Thursday, October 11th, 2012 from 4:30-6:00pm in the Shriver Hall Board Room on the Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus. RSVP to bokeefe2@jhu.edu.  

This summer, I had a wonderful three months working at RESOLVE as a policy research intern and completed my first-ever independent research – exciting, rewarding, and unforgettable!

My paper is a case study on the amount of public participation training in accredited forestry degree programs in New Brunswick, Canada. The working group within the Sustainable Forest Community-University Research Alliance (a.k.a. “Forest Collaborative”) asked me to research and answer the following question: Are there enough courses provided in New Brunswick to engage forestry students in public participation and to prepare them with necessary skills to work in the forest planning industry? The answer to this question will help the working group propose solutions for enhancing the region’s forest planning.

When I was first assigned to a group of Canadian stakeholders discussing forest planning and public participation, I literally had no idea what they were talking about. It took me almost two weeks to get familiar with terms like “collaborative efforts” and “public engagement.” It took me another two weeks to absorb all the other information I needed, including the state of forestry education, forestry planning practices, and the geography of  Canada (I did hang a huge map in my office and it’s still there). Meanwhile, I started designing the survey and began conducting phone interviews. I ended up spending more than a month talking to about 20 Canadian scholars, educators, foresters, and government officials over the phone – the first-hand notes I took in the one-on-one interviews really helped me develop the structure of my research! Thanks to their diverse perspectives, I was able to have a broader view of the issue.

Two months after I first stepped into the office, I had read and heard enough about what the issue was – enough to get me started writing.  The information I had collected, however, was just so overwhelming that I didn’t even know where to begin. My supervisor, Juliana Birkhoff, spent a lot of time helping me get on the right track. To provide a model for my paper, I looked up the work of others who have done similar analyses; some scholars from the Forest Collaborative team generously provided me with their previous working papers as references. The actual writing time was not as long as I thought it would be – it helps to have a concrete idea of what you would like to say! My lovely RESOLVE co-workers helped me review the draft paper, as did the group members of the Forest Collaborative. You can view the final version here.

Cathy Xuege Lu is a second year student at Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies.

Every month, IPS students gather informally to discuss issues in a number of  policy areas, including food, education, environmental and economic policy.  Participants from these gatherings will contribute their thoughts on the talks to the IPS blog on a regular basis.  

The first economic roundtable analyzed training programs as policy intervention to impact employment rates and the wider labor market in a city or region.

The roundtable discussion began by investigating the rationale behind some workforce development programs and the financial support they received from ARRA.  Nick Mayr, the facilitator, had worked on a related program in Baltimore as an intern and shared his thoughts on the same. One of the problems with ARRA funding was that it required speedy implementation, given the deadlines for spending the funds. Also, maintaining accurate records of individuals, contacting them, and tracking their progress seems to be one of the obstacles that these kinds of programs face in effectively serving the target population. 

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 Recent trends in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education. Environmental sustainability in post-disaster settings. The policy implications behind the difference between a “food desert” and a “food swamp.”

These are just a few of the topics IPS students discussed in the month of April.

What began in August, 2011 as a monthly meeting to discuss education policy issues over wine and cheese has evolved into series of five monthly “roundtables” exploring contemporary issues related to food, economic, environmental, education, and international development policy.

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