Rita Hamad

Immigrant Nobel Prize winners exiting the United States

The Potential of Local Child Tax Credits to Reduce Child Poverty Local governments have a critical role to play in reducing child poverty. Local Child Tax Credits could provide large tax cuts to families at the bottom of the income scale, lessening the overall regr...

Feel hopeless bc Congress and the President don’t care about families in your community? Send this report to your mayor and city council members!

What Are Some Challenges of Growing Up Poor in America? | FRONTLINE | PBS | Official Site | Documentary Series The U.S. has one of the highest child poverty rates among wealthy countries. Here’s a look at struggles kids living in poverty face, including access to food, healthcare and education.

I looked into research about the short and long-term struggles that children living in poverty face, including access to food, healthcare and education.

Thank you to Dr. @ritahamad.bsky.social and Dr. Joseph Llobrera for speaking with me for this story.

Postdoc @emilydore.bsky.social @hsph.harvard.edu provided an interview to @healthyfutures.bsky.social discussing the findings of this study, highlighting the importance of social policy design for improving #healthequity. www.healthyfutures.blog/p/how-social... @rwjf.org @policies4action.bsky.social

I also chatted with them about my team's research on anti-poverty policies as key drivers of child health. A recent report @nationalacademies.org also describes the role of tax credits in addressing child poverty: www.nationalacademies.org/news/2025/09... @itep.org @centeronbudget.bsky.social 2/2

What Are Some Challenges of Growing Up Poor in America? | FRONTLINE | PBS | Official Site | Documentary Series The U.S. has one of the highest child poverty rates among wealthy countries. Here’s a look at struggles kids living in poverty face, including access to food, healthcare and education.

Thanks to @frontlinepbs.bsky.social for covering continuing crisis of child #poverty in the US, which harms children & society at large. This is a critical topic in the wake of federal cuts to social safety net programs. www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontli... @ambikakandasamy.bsky.social @hsph.harvard.edu 1/

I'm sure this is not unrelated to the recent announcement that Mississippi has an infant mortality crisis, and yet also stopped gathering PRAMS data this year, the only national survey of perinatal and postpartum health. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... @theguardian.com @cartersherman.bsky.social

Ah, you're right, this is available for members of @societyforepi.bsky.social!

Interested in reading some papers to advance your skills in policy evaluation for #publichealth research? Check out the @societyforepi.bsky.social playlist I put together with Audrey Renson, now available online: epiresearch.org/serlibrary/s...

Federal Data Are Disappearing as Statistical Agencies Face Budget Cuts and Political Pressure | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Federal statistical agencies face increasingly overt politicization by the Trump Administration on top of chronic underinvestment, uncertainty, and recent and proposed budget cuts, all of which threat...

The Trump Administration is defunding important surveys and undermining federal statistical agencies, suppressing data that would reveal the harmful effects of the Republican megabill’s deep cuts and leaving families’ struggles harder to track. www.cbpp.org/research/pov...

It's unclear what the exact effect of a national Medicaid work requirement will be, but Aparni Soni et al. offer an important glimpse at who is doing community engagement to the required degree to sustain Medicaid coverage under these terms, & equity implications read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/articl...

Corresponding coverage @nytimes.com : www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/u...

Forsaking Food Security by Chris Dick and Beth Jarosz How often are Americans concerned that their food will run out before they have money to buy more? Or that they did not have...

Latest horrifying news on Trump administration erasing national data: they're ending data collection on food security by Census. Explanation of why this is a big deal: updates.dataindex.us/archive/fors... @npi.ucanr.edu @donmoyn.bsky.social @centeronbudget.bsky.social @popassocamerica.bsky.social

House Appropriations Committee Advances Key Spending Bills Rejects Administration’s Proposed Funding Cuts and Praises Population Research

House Appropriations Committee Advances Key Spending Bills: Rejects Administration’s Proposed Funding Cuts and Praises Population Research buff.ly/9nu03sX

Upcoming seminar hosted by #HealthAffairs on "#Immigration Policies and Their Impact on #Health Care," including effects on both patients and the healthcare workforce. Oct 15 at 1pm Eastern. Sign up here: www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/h... @nilc.org @immcouncil.org @kffhealthnews.org

And now a moment of levity: my first attempt at #distractedboyfriend meme as I prepare some lecture slides on hypothesis-generation and theory-testing.
#sciencesky #academicsky

New podcast @irpwisc.bsky.social w/ Jane Waldfogel @columbiauniversity.bsky.social on importance of US safety net benefits for kids, and how a universal child $$ benefit would be investment in the future. US is among only high-income countries without this benefit: www.irp.wisc.edu/resource/irp...

The Worst Piece of Health Care Legislation Ever This JAMA forum discusses the cuts to US health care spending in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and their impacts on Medicare and Medicaid recipients, physicians, and hospitals, particularly those in ...

New @jamahealthforum.com by D Cutler: "Worst Piece of Health Care Legislation Ever" on #OBBBA ravaging healthcare for millions. Only disagreement is with: "As bad as it is as economic policy, the bill is worse as health policy." It's pretty terrible on the economy.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Government-Funded Health and Biomedical Research Is Irreplaceable - NAM For eight decades, the federal government has invested in biomedical and clinical research that has transformed public health, fueled economic growth,

New commentary @nam.edu on the critical value of US govt-funded health research, which is currently being dismantled and undermined by Trump administration. nam.edu/perspectives... @warren.senate.gov @edmarkey.bsky.social @massgovernor.bsky.social

These findings are critical especially to state policymakers seeking to improve safety net benefits, as fed govt makes access harder. Thanks to @rwjf.org, Blue Shield of CA Foundation, Tipping Point Foundation; and co-authors @berkeleypublichlth.bsky.social @npi.ucanr.edu @hsph.harvard.edu 4/4

In the second qualitative paper, we examine lived experiences of low-income families navigating pandemic-era safety net programs. Our most surprising finding was how stressful *temporary* benefits are: ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2... @capolicylab.bsky.social @amjpublichealth.bsky.social 3/

Even though the EITC is the largest US poverty alleviation policy, we found dramatic barriers to participation in the form of learning, compliance, and psychological barriers, suggesting the need for structural solutions. academic.oup.com/healthaffair... @pamherd.bsky.social @donmoyn.bsky.social 2/

Thrilled to co-author 2 recent qualitative papers that perfectly demonstrate the importance of mixed methods research to inform US policy. In the first aptly titled "It's confusing as hell" we examined lived experiences of low-income people applying for the EITC. academic.oup.com/healthaffair... 1/

New paper @ameracadpeds.bsky.social w/ Dr. Whaley @phfewic.bsky.social summarizes studies on US social policies to promote breastfeeding, e.g. how work restrictions for many safety net policies ⬇️ women's ability to breastfeed: doi.org/10.1542/peds... @npwf.bsky.social @urbaninstitute.bsky.social 1/

For many policies - like #childtaxcredit & #EITC - we found no/few studies examining breastfeeding, despite importance of this practice to promote maternal & child health. Future studies will be stymied by reduced access to federal data like PRAMS. doi.org/10.1542/peds... @hsph.harvard.edu 3/3

We also describe how #paidleave policies have consistently been shown to support breastfeeding. The US is the only high-income country without a national leave policy, although states are increasingly filling this gap. doi.org/10.1542/peds... @paidleaveforall.bsky.social 2/

New paper @ameracadpeds.bsky.social w/ Dr. Whaley @phfewic.bsky.social summarizes studies on US social policies to promote breastfeeding, e.g. how work restrictions for many safety net policies ⬇️ women's ability to breastfeed: doi.org/10.1542/peds... @npwf.bsky.social @urbaninstitute.bsky.social 1/

Thanks to @hsph.harvard.edu for a great summary of this important work, with important implications for recent ⬆️ work requirements & ⬇️ generosity of US safety net policies: hsph.harvard.edu/news/breastf... @irpwisc.bsky.social @npwf.bsky.social
Original article: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

After some federal grants reinstated, researchers struggle to restart projects | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Researchers who had their federal funding terminated by the Trump administration—and later had it restored thanks to a federal judge’s ruling—say that the process of getting their projects moving agai...

Researchers who had their federal funding terminated by the Trump administration—and later had it restored thanks to a federal judge’s ruling—say that the process of getting their projects moving again has been marked by confusion and delays.

bottom 20% poorer, top 10% 2.7% richer, everyone else 0.1 to 1.5% better off.

New analysis from CBO of the "Big Beautiful Bill" shows the bottom 20% get poorer, not much change for most of America, & the top 10% get meaningfully richer - and that's before tariffs

The "Big Beautiful Bill" was the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in history