Dolores Acevedo-Garcia
Professor, Director of IECOHD
Dolores Acevedo-Garcia is a professor of Human Behavior, Research, & Policy and director of the Institute for Equity in Child Opportunity & Healthy Development (IECOHD). Her research focuses on the social determinants (e.g. residential segregation, neighborhood inequality, immigrant adaptation) of racial/ethnic inequities in health; the role of social policies (e.g. housing, anti-poverty, immigrant policies) in reducing those inequities; and the well-being of children with special needs. 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.
Dr. Acevedo-Garcia uses a child’s rights and health equity perspective, emphasizing that children’s lives have inherent value, and that society should invest in both ensuring their well-being during childhood and supporting their potential as adults.
She is 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. The project collaborates with researchers, organizations, and policy agencies 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.
Specialties
• Social determinants (e.g. residential segregation, neighborhood inequality, immigrant adaptation) of racial/ethnic inequities in health
• The role of social policies (e.g. housing, anti-poverty, immigrant policies) in reducing those inequities
• Well-being of children with special needs
Research Areas
Related News
View All- Photo Gallery: “Research in Action – Economic Insecurity Across a Lifespan”
Researchers from BUSSW present critical findings on how early exposure to economic hardship during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood can shape long-term economic and health outcomes.
- 4/17: The 2025 Hubie Jones Lecture in Urban Health with Michael Curry, Esq.
Editor's note [4/22/25]: The event recording is available here. The 2025 Hubie Jones Lecture in Urban Health with Michael Curry Our Moment to Address the “Taint of Race” in Health; If Not Now, Then When? Thursday, April 17, 2025 5:30–7:00 p.m. (ET) Hybrid (BU Photonics Center & Zoom) In-Person Location: The Photonics Center, Colloquium Room […]
- New York Times: Professor Acevedo-Garcia Explains How New GOP Bill Harms Children with Immigrant Relatives
The Trump administration is pushing sweeping policy changes to restrict undocumented immigrants and some legal immigrants from accessing federal benefits like housing, food stamps, Medicaid, and the Child Tax Credit. While officials say the goal is to prevent misuse of taxpayer funds, critics argue the measures will disproportionately harm U.S. citizen children in mixed-status families […]
Education
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PhD (Public Affairs)
Princeton University
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MPA (Public Affairs and Urban and Regional Planning)
Princeton University
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BA (Public Administration)
El Colegio de México, México City
Publications
Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2000). Residential Segregation and the Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases. Social Science & Medicine, 51(8), 1143-1161. 10.1016/s0277-9536(00)00016-2
Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2001). Zip Code-Level Risk Factors for Tuberculosis: Neighborhood Environment and Residential Segregation in New Jersey, 1985-1992. American Journal of Public Health, 91(5), 734-741. 10.2105/ajph.91.5.734
Acevedo-Garcia, D., Lochner, K. A., Osypuk, T. L., Subramanian, S. V. (2003). Future Directions in Residential Segregation and Health Research: A Multilevel Approach. American Journal of Public Health, 93(2), 215-221. 10.2105/ajph.93.2.215
Acevedo‐Garcia, D., Osypuk, T. L., Werbel, R. E., Meara, E. R., Cutler, D. M., Berkman, L. F. (2004). Does Housing Mobility Policy Improve Health? Housing Policy Debate, 15(1), 49-98. 10.1080/10511482.2004.9521495
Acevedo-Garcia, D., Pan, J., Jun, H. J., Osypuk, T. L., Emmons, K. M. (2005). The Effect of Immigrant Generation on Smoking. Social Science & Medicine, 61(6), 1223-1242. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.01.027
Acevedo-Garcia, D., Soobader, M. J., Berkman, L. F. (2007). Low Birthweight among Us Hispanic/Latino Subgroups: The Effect of Maternal Foreign-Born Status and Education. Social Science & Medicine, 65(12), 2503-2516. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.06.033
Acevedo-Garcia, D., Osypuk, T. L., McArdle, N., Williams, D. R. (2008). Toward a Policy-Relevant Analysis of Geographic and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Child Health. Health Affairs, 27(2), 321-333. 10.1377/hlthaff.27.2.321
Acevedo-Garcia, D., Sanchez-Vaznaugh, E. V., Viruell-Fuentes, E. A., Almeida, J. (2012). Integrating Social Epidemiology into Immigrant Health Research: A Cross-National Framework. Social Science & Medicine, 75(12), 2060-2068. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.04.040
Osypuk, T. L., Joshi, P., Geronimo, K., Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2014). Do Social and Economic Policies Influence Health? A Review. Current Epidemiology Reports, 1(3), 149-164. 10.1007/s40471-014-0013-5
Acevedo-Garcia, D., McArdle, N., Hardy, E., Dillman, K. N., Reece, J., Crisan, U. I., Norris, D., Osypuk, T. L. (2016). Neighborhood Opportunity and Location Affordability for Low-Income Renter Families. Housing Policy Debate, 26(4-5), 607-645. 10.1080/10511482.2016.1198410
Nguyen, Q. C., Acevedo-Garcia, D., Schmidt, N. M., Osypuk, T. L. (2017). The Effects of a Housing Mobility Experiment on Participants' Residential Environments. Housing Policy Debate, 27(3), 419-448. 10.1080/10511482.2016.1245210
Acevedo-Garcia, D., Noelke, C., McArdle, N., Sofer, N., Hardy, E. F., Weiner, M., Baek, M., Huntington, N., Huber, R., Reece, J. (2020). Racial and Ethnic Inequities in Children's Neighborhoods: Evidence from the New Child Opportunity Index 2.0. Health Affairs, 39(10), 1693-1701. 10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00735
Acevedo-Garcia, D., Joshi, P. K., Ruskin, E., Walters, A. N., Sofer, N. (2021). Restoring an Inclusionary Safety Net for Children in Immigrant Families: A Review of Three Social Policies. Health Affairs, 40(7), 1099-1107. 10.1377/hlthaff.2021.00206
Noelke, C., Outrich, M., Baek, M., Reece, J., Osypuk, T. L., McArdle, N., Ressler, R. W., Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2022). Connecting Past to Present: Examining Different Approaches to Linking Historical Redlining to Present Day Health Inequities. PLoS One, 17(5), e0267606. 10.1371/journal.pone.0267606
Acevedo-Garcia, D., Noelke, C., Shafer, L. (2024). Confronting the Role of Structural Racism in Inequities in Child Neighborhood Opportunity and Child Health. Academic Pediatrics, 24(7, Supplement), S173-S177. 10.1016/j.acap.2024.05.004
Presentations
Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2024). Towards closing the opportunity gap in early childhood: Addressing the demography and neighborhood context of young children. Advancing Population Health and Well-being for Historically Minoritized Populations, National Research Conference on Early Childhood.
Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2023, November 15). Overview of A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty, the 2019 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Report. Children’s Interagency Coordinating Council Kickoff, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC.
Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2021, November 4). The Child Opportunity Index: Health equity applications. Director’s Seminar, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
Acevedo-Garcia, D., & McArdle, N. (2017, April 19). Consequences of segregation for children's opportunity and wellbeing. A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality, Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies/Ford Foundation, Wellesley, MA.
Acevedo-Garcia, D., & Hardy, E. (2017, March 23). Why and how racial/ethnic equity matters. Tenth Biennial Federal Reserve System Community Development Research Conference: Strong Foundations: The Economic Futures of Kids and Communities, Federal Reserve, Washington, DC.
Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2016, March 7). How affordable is Opportunity? Tool. White House Open Opportunity Data Initiative, Washington, DC.
Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2016, March 5). Living up to our diversity: Tracking progress towards equity in children’s health. Council on Contemporary Families Annual Conference, Austin, TX.
Grants
2024-2026 PI, Future-proofing diversitydatakids.org: A Strategic Business Development Initiative (W.K. Kellogg Foundation), $1,100,000
2024-2026 PI, Strengthening the Infrastructure and Impact of diversitydatakids.org: An Equity-focused Knowledge System (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), $2,000,000
2023-2024 co-PI, Increasing Hispanic Workers’ Access to Paid Family and Medical Leave (The Urban Institute, WorkRise), $315,000
2021-2024 PI, Developing the Child Opportunity Index 3.0 to Improve Equitable Access to Opportunity and Health Equity for Children across the U.S. (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), $1,500,000
2021-2024 PI, diversitydatakids.org 3.0: Updating, Enhancing, and Mobilizing Data, Analysis, and Knowledge Products to Advance a National-to-local Child Racial/Ethnic Equity Agenda (W.K. Kellogg Foundation), $2,000,000
2020-2021 PI, Including Children of Immigrants in the Post-Pandemic Economic Recovery Efforts and Safety Net (W.T. Grant Foundation and Spencer Foundation), $125,000
2018-2021 PI, Leveraging the Child Opportunity Index to Improve Equitable Access to Healthy Communities (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), $2,996,123
2017-2021 PI, diversitydatakids.org 2.0: An Indicator and Policy Analysis Project to Advance a National-to-local Child Racial/Ethnic Equity Agenda (W.K. Kellogg Foundation), $3,070,000
Professional Activities and Certifications
MEMBERSHIP IN SELECTED RESEARCH NETWORKS AND COMMITTEES
2024: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Congressionally-mandated Committee on Federal Policy Impacts on Child Poverty
2024: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Advisory Panel for Immigrant Financial Characteristics Study
2022-24: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Societal Experts Action Network (SEAN) Executive Committee
2021-: Health Affairs’ Health Equity Advisory Committee
2020-21: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Executive Council, Response and Resilient Recovery Strategic Science Initiative
2019-21: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020 Surgeon General’s Report on “Community Health and Economic Prosperity”
2017-19: National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Congressionally-mandated Committee on Building an Agenda to Reduce the Number of Children in Poverty by Half in 10 Years consensus study
2015-: Housing and Children’s Healthy Development Study, Steering Committee (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, MacArthur Foundation)
2009-14: MacArthur Foundation Research Network on How Housing Matters for Families with Children
CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY
2020: Invited testimony, Hearing on Reducing Child Poverty, House Committee on Ways and Means, March 11
2020: Invited testimony, Hearing on Reducing Child Poverty, House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, March 3
SELECTED PUBLIC SERVICE
2021-22: Senior advisor on social policy and equity (Intergovernmental Personnel Act Mobility Program), Office of Human Services Policy, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
2020-21: Massachusetts Department of Public Health, COVID-19 Health Equity Advisory Group
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
2024-: National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families, Advisory Council
2019-24: National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families, Technical Working Group
2016-21: National Institute for Children’s Health Quality, Board of Directors
2015-19: National Center for Children in Poverty, Advisory Board
2015-19: Council on Contemporary Families, Board of Directors
2014-18: March of Dimes, Hispanic Advisory Council
2013-: Vital Village Network, National Advisory Committee
2013-: PolicyLink, Board