Research Grants
2024 CHR&R Research Grants Update
This past fall, we solicited research proposals for the 2024 County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR&R) Research Grants. Through these projects, we are able to strengthen our Rankings methods and increase their strategic use and impacts. We have chosen four innovative projects this year, including:
Measuring political and community power for Latino communities
(University of Iowa)
There is growing recognition that racial and ethnic health disparities are, in part, due to disparities in community power, which are themselves rooted in historical structures of systemic racism. To broaden our understanding of community power, this project seeks to use a political science perspective in order to examine the best ways to measure Latino community power and its relationship to racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes.
Considering synthetic data for the measurement of subcounty health inequities
(University of Minnesota)
Capturing disparities in health at the subcounty level, essential to understanding the health experience of all residents in a community, is no easy task in the absence of readily available subcounty data. For this reason, researchers at the University of Minnesota will pursue implementation and refinement of methods for generating synthetic data and exploration of the extent to which these data can calculate and preserve subcounty measures of health inequities.
Exploring county governance structures as drivers of health inequities
(University of Nevada-Reno)
During our last round of research grants, researchers created and piloted indices of county unincorporation status across five states and found associations between the indices and measures of health outcomes in communities. University of Nevada-Reno’s project will extend this work to all states across the nation, in conjunction with indicators of county governance authority, capacity, and responsiveness, in order to deepen the understanding of key governance levers and political determinants in community health outcomes.
Understanding the connection between democracy and community health and equity
(Healthy Democracy Healthy People)
Building off the 2023 CHR&R National Findings Report which focused on civic health and infrastructure, researchers at Healthy Democracy Healthy People will explore the structural underpinnings of representative democracy and how they interact with the health of communities. The project aims to illustrate the relationship between voter participation, racial segregation, and racial legislative representation to develop a strong cohesive narrative and understanding of how democratic processes are connected to health and racial equity.
We will share more as these projects move forward. For details about the results and use of past research grant findings, see our past research projects page.