Blalock Lecture: "The Detroit Metro Area Communities Study (DMACS): Measuring the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Detroit."
When: Thursday, July 23 at 7:30 p.m. EDT
Presenters: Jeffrey Morenoff, University of Michigan; Elisabeth Gerber, University of Michigan; Lydia Wileden, University of Michigan; Lynette Hoelter, ICPSR
Zoom URL to join the lecture (live captioning available)
The ICPSR Summer Program would like to invite you to tonight's Blalock lecture! These lectures are FREE and open to the public.
Abstract: The Detroit Metro Area Communities Study (DMACS) is a longitudinal study of a probability sample of Detroit households designed to regularly survey a broad, representative group of Detroit residents about their communities, including their expectations, perceptions, priorities, and aspirations. Its mission is to engage residents and stakeholders in informing the city’s future by involving stakeholders in the prioritization, collection and dissemination of public opinion information that supports more meaningful and effective community development investments in and around Detroit.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, DMACS has conducted monthly surveys of Detroiters. The first COVID-19 survey was fielded in late March and early April and was followed by a second survey in late April/early May, a third in late May/early June, and a fourth that launched on July 15 and is still in the field. In this talk we will explain the genesis of the study, review our approach to sampling and some of the topics covered in previous surveys, and explain the changes we made to our approach during the pandemic. We will also review findings related to the health and behaviors of Detroiters during the pandemic (e.g., COVID-19 diagnosis and testing, social distancing behaviors and mask wearing, and mental health) as well as the financial impacts of the pandemic and their uneven effects on different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
Bios: Jeffrey Morenoff is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Research Professor in the Population Studies Center and Survey Research Center. He is also Director of the Population Studies Center in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Professor Morenoff’s research interests include neighborhood environments, inequality, crime and criminal justice, the social determinants of health, racial/ethnic/immigrant disparities in health and antisocial behavior, and methods for analyzing multilevel and spatial data. Morenoff’s current projects include studies of (1) prisoner reentry in Michigan, (2) neighborhood environments and health in Chicago, (3) neighborhood environments, crime, and antisocial behavior in Medellín, Colombia, (4) change over time in the spatial concentration of poverty, and (5) long-term trajectories of health and mortality in the U.S. In 2004, Morenoff won the Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology, for “outstanding contributions to the discipline of criminology.”
Elisabeth R. Gerber is the associate dean for research and policy engagement and the Jack L. Walker, Jr. Professor of Public Policy at the Ford School, with a courtesy appointment in the U-M Department of Political Science. Her current research focuses on regionalism and intergovernmental cooperation, sustainable development, urban climate adaptation, transportation policy, community and economic development, local fiscal capacity, and local political accountability. She is the author of The Populist Paradox: Interest Group Influence and the Promise of Direct Legislation (1999), co-author of Stealing the Initiative: How State Government Responds to Direct Democracy (2000), and co-editor of Voting at the Political Fault Line: California's Experiment with the Blanket Primary (2001) and Michigan at the Millennium (2003). She recently completed a five-year term as vice-chair of the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan. She received her PhD in political science from the University of Michigan.
Lydia Wileden completed her B.A. in Urban Studies at Barnard College in New York in 2011. Following graduation, she moved to DC where she first worked in Congress for the Office of the Democratic Leader and later worked for a government funded-nonprofit developing strategies to spur investment in blighted communities . Lydia is a PhD candidate in Sociology and Public Policy. Her research interests center on how neighborhoods change; how public policies contribute to or alleviate concentrated poverty; how people choose their neighborhoods; and the role social networks play in low-income family achievement strategies.
Lynette Hoelter is an associate archivist and director of instructional resources at ICPSR. She is involved in projects related to quantitative reasoning and statistical literacy, especially within the undergraduate social science curriculum, as well as in projects that contribute to social science data infrastructure. Lynette has taught statistics and research methods/survey research in the departments of sociology and urban and regional planning, as well as in the Institute for Social Research's Summer Program in Survey Methodology and ICPSR's Summer Program, at the University of Michigan and elsewhere.
|