Dolores Acevedo-Garcia

Dolores Acevedo-Garcia is a professor of Human Behavior, Research, & Policy and director of the Institute for Equity in Child Opportunity & Healthy Development at Boston University School of Social Work. She received her BA in Public Administration from El Colegio de Mexico (Mexico City) and her MPA-URP and PhD in Public Policy with a concentration in Demography from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Her research examines racial/ethnic inequality in social determinants of health across the United States from the national to the neighborhood level. For children, social determinants of health include residential segregation, neighborhood inequality, and poverty, as well as social policies (e.g. housing, anti-poverty, immigrant policies) that can mitigate or exacerbate inequities.

Dr. Acevedo-Garcia is the project director of diversitydatakids.org, a comprehensive research program and indicator database on racial/ethnic equity in child opportunity and well-being across multiple sectors and geographies, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. diversitydatakids.org is recognized for its rigorous equity-focused data tools and research, including its flagship Child Opportunity Index and Policy Equity Assessments. This mission to examine inequality at the population level requires large census, survey, and administrative data at different geographic scales (e.g. census block, census tract, ZIP code) with national coverage. Ideally, this data is disaggregated (e.g., by race/ethnicity and immigrant status) because the conditions in which children grow up vary greatly by race, ethnicity, and family income. Translating data work into research and action that can help reduce inequities requires collaboration with stakeholders along the data-for-equity pipeline—from the conceptualization of indicators to data analysis to dissemination of findings and policy and practice applications. Partners in this work include researchers, non-profit organizations, and government agencies with a common mission to improve children’s equitable access to opportunity and well-being.

Dr. Acevedo-Garcia currently serves on the congressionally-mandated National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Committee on Federal Policy Impacts on Child Poverty. From 2017-2019, she served on the NASEM committee that produced the landmark report A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty.