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Research and Practice

Guaranteed Income and Health Consortium

The Guaranteed Income (GI) and Health Consortium at Hopkins is focused on providing technical assistance and setting the landscape for Guaranteed Income and health, developing a conference grant together. In an era where disparities in health equity are brought to the forefront, we will be advancing efforts to extend the opportunity to attain the highest level of health. 

As part of the Guaranteed Income Consortium Initiative, our goals are:

  • Convene with health experts who are committed to addressing poverty as a fundamental cause of health. 
  • Evaluate and consult GI pilots across the US about how to incorporate health into their data collection, analyze, and report on those data.
  • Advance the scholarship and build the scientific evidence for GI’s impacts on health and health equity.

Consortium Leadership

Lorraine Dean

Lorraine Dean, ScD

Co-Chair, Guaranteed Income and Health Consortium
Associate Professor
Department of Epidemiology

Sevly Snguon

Sevly Snguon

Co-Chair, Guaranteed Income and Health Consortium
PhD Student
Department of Epidemiology

Kamini Reddy

Kamini Narendra Reddy

Coordinator, Guaranteed Income and Health Consortium
Research Assistant
Department of Epidemiology

Charlie Nguyen

Charlie Nguyen

Coordinator, Guaranteed Income and Health Consortium
Senior Research Program Coordinator
Department of Epidemiology

Consortium Membership

Caroline Fichtenberg

Caroline Fichtenberg, PhD

University of California San Francisco, Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network (SIREN)

Dr. Fichtenberg is interested in helping support evaluation of health care impacts and can be reached at caroline.fichtenberg@ucsf.edu.

Michelle Nakphong, PhD

University of California San Francisco

Dr. Nakphong is a social epidemiologist and a current postdoc at UCSF whose research focuses on minoritized groups and is interested in housing instability and inclusionary policies. She is currently working with the Black Economic Equity Movement (BEEM) organization (https://beemproject.org/), an NIH-funded GI project, providing 12 months of GI for low-income to Black young adults in San Francisco and Oakland, CA. The evaluation examines the following outcomes: investment in the future (education, job training), mental health, and sexual/reproductive health service use.  Dr. Nakphong can be reached at  michelle.nakphong@ucsf.edu.

Sarah Berger Gonzales

Sarah Berger Gonzalez

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

Ms. Berger Gonzalez works with Chapin Hall, an organization that utilizes rigorous research to generate evidence-based findings for improving the lives of individuals, families, and communities, especially those experiencing disproportionate exposure to adversity. Sarah can be reached at sgonzalez@chapinhall.org.

Paul Shafer

Paul Shafer, PhD

Boston University

Dr. Shafer's GI research focuses on the 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion under the American Rescue Plan Act. His team found that its introduction in July 2021 decreased food insufficiency among households with children by 26% and later that its expiration at the end of 2021 gave back that progress, resulting in a corresponding 25% increase by July 2022. More can be found on Paul and his research at https://www.bu.edu/sph/profile/paul-shafer/.

Dr. Shafer can be reached at pshafer@bu.edu and his Twitter handle is https://twitter.com/shaferpr

Allison Bovell-Ammon

Allison Bovell-Ammon

Children's HealthWatch

Ms. Bovell-Ammon works with Children's HealthWatch, an organization that conducts research and advocacy related to the expansion of the CTC, and leads the statewide coalition in Massachusetts working to expand the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and CTC into a guaranteed income. They are also working with the Dana Farber Cancer Institute to inform a randomized trial of GI for low-income families of children receiving cancer treatment.  

Ms. Bovell-Ammon can be reached at allison.bovell-ammon@bmc.org and her Twitter handle is https://twitter.com/ChildrensHW.

William Goedel

William Goedel, PhD

Brown University

Dr. Goedel is a social epidemiologist whose research focuses on how past and present policy decisions in housing, labor, and education shape the neighborhoods we live, work, and place in. He is interested in guaranteed income as an approach to improving community resilience in the context of future pandemics and other emergencies.  

Dr. Goedel can be reached at william_goedel@brown.edu  and his Twitter handle is https://twitter.com/william_goedel.  

Larissa Jennings Mayo-Wilson

Larissa Jennings Mayo-Wilson, PhD MHS

University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health

Dr. Jennings Mayo-Wilson’s research examines economic and structural causes of sexual and reproductive health disparities and how income and other asset-based interventions can be used to mitigate these disparities. More on Dr. Jennings Mayo-Wilson’s research can be found at https://sph.unc.edu/adv_profile/larissa-jennings-mayo-wilson-phd-mhs/

Dr. Jennings Mayo-Wilson can be reached at ljennings.mayowilson@unc.edu

Zoe Bouchelle

Zoe Bouchelle, MD

University of Pennsylvania, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Dr. Bouchelle is a pediatrician and health services researcher focused on reducing the negative impacts of poverty on the health and well-being of children and families. Dr. Bouchelle's prior work has examined the impact of the CTC on food insufficiency in lower-income households and explored interventions to address poverty-related social needs through the healthcare system. Dr. Bouchelle's current and future work examines the impact of unconditional cash transfers and other income support on the health and well-being of children and their families.  

Dr. Bouchelle can be reached at bouchellez@chop.edu, https://twitter.com/ZoeBouchelle (Twitter), and https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-bouchelle-9393ba18  (LinkedIn) 

Mona Hanna-Attisha

Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD

Michigan State University

Dr. Hanna-Attisha works with the community and national partners, and is leading the "Rx Kids" effort in Flint, Michigan to address maternal and infant economic instability through the city-wide provision of prenatal (one-time) and infancy (monthly from 0-12 months) unconditional cash allowances.  

More on “Rx Kids” can be found at https://msuhurleypphi.org/Rx%20Kids/index.html.  

Dr. Hanna-Attisha can be reached at hannamon@msu.edu and https://twitter.com/MonaHannaA (Twitter) 

Catherine K. Ettman, PhD

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Dr. Catherine Ettman explores the social and economic forces that shape population mental health, and policies that can reduce mental health disparities. More on Dr. Ettman can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-ettman-phd-0740a136/.   

Dr. Ettman can be reached at cettman1@jhu.edu

Lorraine Dean

Lorraine Dean, ScD

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Dr. Dean is a social epidemiologist whose research focuses on using GI to disrupt structural racism and economic inequality. As a member of the Baltimore Guaranteed Income Steering Committee, she is helping to evaluate health outcomes of Baltimore's pilot project participants using both quantitative and qualitative data collection. 

Dr. Dean can be reached at lori.dean@jhu.edu and https://twitter.com/DrLTDean. (Twitter)

Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba

Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, PhD

Boston University School of Public Health

Dr. Ettinger de Cuba has worked on advocacy related to the EITC, CTC, and income-related issues for many years. She is a co-PI of a mixed methods study of the impact of the advance CTC on the health and well-being of families with young children, with a particular focus on families of color and immigrant families. This study also explored structural barriers to the advance CTC. In addition, Dr. Ettinger de Cuba has also co-authored two nationally representative studies on the CTC and food insufficiency (decrease in food insufficiency after the implementation of the advanced CTC and increase in food insufficiency after its expiration) and is currently developing several other GI-focused projects.  More on the project can be found at https://childrenshealthwatch.org/ctchealthimpact/.

Dr. Ettinger de Cuba can be reached at sedc@bu.edu and https://twitter.com/stephanieedc.   (Twitter)

Deborah Karasek

Deborah Karasek, PhD

Oregon Health & Science University and Portland State University School of Public Health

Dr. Karasek is a social epidemiologist who investigates how structural contexts shape health over the lifespan and how to target policy solutions to improve health equity. She is on the evaluation team for Abundant Birth Project (ABP), guaranteed pilot intervention for Black and Pacific Islander pregnant people in San Francisco, as well as the forthcoming ABP California Expansion. She also uses quasi experimental designs to evaluate the impact of existing policies, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, on perinatal health equity.

Dr. Karasek can be reached at karasekd@ohsu.edu and her Twitter handle is @karasekd. 

Catherine Lesko

Catherine Lesko, PhD

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Dr. Lesko studies the effects of non-randomly assigned interventions in populations and hope to provide guidance on how to evaluate GI projects and provide guidance for tailoring them for maximal effectiveness as they become more widely implemented.

Dr. Lesko can be reached at clesko2@jhu.edu

Nickolas Zaller

Nickolas Zaller, PhD

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health

Dr. Zallar is conducting an NIH-funded study to examine the impact of GI on healthcare service utilization among Black men 45 and older (with and without a history of incarceration) with diagnosed chronic illness.

Dr. Zallar can be reached at ndzaller@uams.edu

Brooke E.E. Montgomery

Brooke E.E. Montgomery, PhD, MPH

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health

"Our Stage 3 efficacy study aims to inform health policy by testing a novel intervention that directly reduces the racial income gap by providing a temporary guaranteed income (GI), which is intended to promote and protect Black men’s health through the influx of capital and subsequent increases in personal agency and social connections. We hypothesize that (1) providing GI of $500 per month for six months will result in increased healthcare utilization among chronically-ill, older and aging, low-income Black men; and (2) the effect of GI will depend on whether an individual has a recent history of incarceration, such that no incarceration history combined with GI will demonstrate the best study outcomes. Empirical research examining GI among older Black men and its capacity to overturn structural racism are lacking in the extant literature—much of the health disparities research intended to inform health and economic policy originated from limited perspectives of older and aging Black men—Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois said in The Souls of Black Folk that for Black people, “discouragement is an unwritten word”; this study draws on that inspiration as it ultimately seeks to fundamentally overturn the economic oppression and brutality that has defined the Black experience for generations."

Dr. Montgomery can be reached at bemontgomery@uams.edu

Sheri Lippman

Sheri Lippman, PhD

University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Lippman is a principal investigator of the Black Economic Equity Movement (BEEM), an NIH-supported randomized cross-over trial to assess the impact of providing guaranteed income and financial services to low-income Black young adults on their financial, mental, and physical well-being .

Dr. Lippman can be reached at sheri.lippman@ucsf.edu

Ross Hatton

Ross Hatton, MPA

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Mr. Hatton is currently using mixed methods to better understand the experiences of caregivers living in Maryland who received the enhanced child tax credit. Specifically, he is looking at what they knew about the credit, how they experienced receiving it, how they used it, and what the credit meant for their mental health and food security status.

Mr. Hatton can be reached at chatton2@jhu.edu and his Twitter handle is @ross_hatton. 
 

Cecile Yama

Cecile Yama, MD

University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Yama is a pediatrician focused on addressing root causes of poverty-related health disparities in order to improve health outcomes children.

Dr. Yama can be reached at cyama@mednet.ucla.edu, and her Twitter handle is https://twitter.com/CecileYaks.

Community Consultants

Matthew Ruby

Matthew Ruby

GiveDirectly

Matthew sees GI as one part of a multipronged struggle toward justice and collective liberation. Unconditional cash is not a silver bullet, but it is a powerful, cross-sectoral tool that Matthew believes can be used within our current economic system to provide some relief for people living in poverty. GI can also promote community healing and power-building.

Matthew can be reached at matthew.ruby@givedirectly.org or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-ruby-333b9997/

Blake Roberts Crall

Blake Roberts Crall

City of Madison, WI & UW Madison Institute for Research on Poverty

Blake can be reached at broberts23@wisc.edu.

Jonathan Johnson

Jonathan Johnson

Rooted School Foundation

Passionate about GI work, Jonathan believes it is a simplistic solution that, if implemented effectively, could fuel a lot of progress in the world.

Jonathan can be reached at jjohnson@rootedschool.org or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-johnson-2698a359/

Alexandra Wilson

Alexandrea Wilson

Black Resilience Fund

Alexandra believes that the guaranteed income movement is critical in addressing basic needs insecurity and inequality that is persistent across the U.S. As a GI practitioner Alexandra is passionate about supporting and advancing this movement. 

Alexandra can be reached at wilson.alexmarie@gmail.com or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandreawilson/