BU’s The Brink: Prof. Acevedo Garcia Shares New Institute’s History & Mission
An article in Boston University’s “The Brink” features Prof. Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, a nationally renowned health inequities researcher, who recently joined Boston University School of Social Work to establish the Institute for Equity in Child Opportunity & Healthy Development. The institute aims to address disparities in neighborhood conditions affecting children’s growth by analyzing factors beyond income, such as access to parks, quality education, and healthcare.
Excerpt from “BU School of Social Work Makes a ‘Transformative’ Hire for Childhood Equity” by Joel Brown:
‘One thing that I was always very interested in is: To what extent are we living in neighborhoods that have very different conditions?’ says Acevedo-Garcia, director of the institute and an SSW professor of human behavior, research, and policy. ‘Do we see patterns that Latino kids or Black kids, for example, are largely living in neighborhoods with much harder conditions for them to grow in a healthy way? Much to my surprise, we did not have a national data system to look at that.’
The main way to gather that information had always been through the poverty index. But, beginning in 2009, Acevedo-Garcia and her team cast a wider net. ‘Let’s look at parks. Let’s look at education, schools. Let’s look at health, at whether people in the community have health insurance,’ she says.”