Brooks School Magazine Spring 2023

Cover Story: Seeking Opinions, Advancing

Jeb E. Brooks, MBA ’70, his wife, Cherie Wendelken, and the Brooks Family Foundation provided the generous support to name the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. Jeb is an advocate for socially responsible investment whose late father taught at Cornell and whose Cornell roots span three generations. Cherie holds a PhD in architectural history from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a Harvard University professor. In 1999, Jeb and Cherie established the Brooks Family Foundation, which focuses on health care, underserved children and the environment.

Dear Brooks School Community,

This is an inspiring time of identity formation, communitybuilding, and growth at the Brooks School of Public Policy as we enter our 2nd year. Like our inaugural year, this academic year has been filled with non-stop activity, energy, and change. We are creating new initiatives such as our Brooks School Tech Policy Institute and we are welcoming into our community university programs such as the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy. We are expanding our ability to serve our students with the establishment of our new Brooks School Enrollment and Student Services office under the leadership of its stellar inaugural director, Christie Avgar, and we have the happy task of reading many more applications than expected from students interested in pursuing policy studies at the Brooks School.

A sense of excitement about our School’s creation extends across the Cornell campus, and was articulated recently by President Martha Pollack in her annual address to Cornell staff: “The Brooks School brings the university’s broad-ranging expertise in public policy teaching, research, and engagement together with our many policy-focused institutes and programs, from Cornell in Washington to the Cornell Center for Health Equity, along with offering, of course, undergraduate and graduate degrees.”

On campus and beyond, connecting across difference matters more than ever and policy schools like ours have a unique role to play in this work. We are living in a politically divisive time, where it is challenging to advance evidenceinformed policies to combat serious societal challenges such as growing income inequality, climate change, and global security threats. The social and political systems we count on are increasingly apathetic to reason, evidence, and empathy. We in higher education, and especially in schools of public policy, are uniquely positioned to train our students (and, yes, ourselves) to seek out multiple points of view, to promote informed dialogue, to articulate the value of free speech, and to create opportunities for civil discourse across difference to help advance solutions to pressing societal challenges.

Whether our students go on to careers in public service or the private or non-profit sectors, they need the soft and hard skills required to engage in the policy process and influence change, while becoming active, engaged, and empathetic citizens. Stories in this second edition of our Brooks School Magazine highlight how we are meeting this moment.

To advance our goals, we have recently launched our Brooks School Learning and Leading through Difference Initiative, supported in part through a generous gift from Brenda Weissman Benn ’02 and Michael Benn ’02. This initiative will help guide us in building on Cornell’s commitment to public engagement, strengthening democracy, promoting civil discourse, advancing conflict resolution, and developing our capacity to be thoughtful, purpose-driven leaders.

Under the umbrella of our Learning and Leading through Difference Initiative, and with seed funds generously provided by John W. Nixon ’53, we are poised to bring to campus the inaugural distinguished policy fellows. Thanks to John’s generosity, we will bring distinguished policy decision makers and thought leaders in public policy to Cornell to engage with our community on critical issues from varied political viewpoints with a focus on fostering constructive dialogue and advancing evidence-informed policy. We will also bring to campus organizations dedicated to advancing principled debate to solve societal problems, such as No Labels.

I look forward to growing our Learning and Leading through Difference Initiative in the coming years and sharing updates with the entire Brooks community. In the meantime, please enjoy reading about the many ways our students, faculty, staff, and supporters are working to improve people’s lives in the U.S. and globally in the pages of this magazine. Join me in taking pride in all that the Brooks School has accomplished over the past year and a half since its founding and sharing in the excitement of what lies ahead.

Best wishes,

Colleen L. Barry PhD, MPP

Brooks School Magazine

Published by the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy

Publication date: April 2, 2023

Editor: Jim Hanchett (jim.hanchett@cornell.edu)

Designer: Rachel Philipson

Design and Photography: Natalie Kimbrough

Contributing writers: James Dean and Blaine Friedlander

Collaborative Midterm Survey offers new insight into the opinions of Americans while advancing survey science

An innovative Cornell-led survey paints a comprehensive picture of what Americans were thinking on Election Day in 2022 – and advances the science of surveys.

Key findings include that nearly half of white Americans recognize that the deck remains stacked against Black Americans. One out of four Americans think parents should decide whether their kids buckle up. And a majority of Americans believe in restoring voting rights to people previously convicted of a felony.

“The results demonstrate that even at a time of extreme political polarization, on some issues the opinions of most Americans are aligned,” said the survey’s principal investigator, Peter K. Enns, professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) and public policy in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the innovative survey was larger and more comprehensive than a traditional public opinion poll. With a sample size of more than 19,000 Americans – 20 times larger than most national polls – it produced a range of fascinating insights. They include:

Joey Guidone

• Majorities in all states favor requiring background checks for gun purchases at gun shows or other private sales;

• Democrats rate the U.S. Congress and supporters of Black Lives Matter more favorably than the average American does. Republicans rate billionaires and the people who breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more favorably than the average American does; and

• The vast majority of Republicans (80%) surveyed accepted the results of the November 2022 midterm elections, even as some leaders of their party and prominent candidates disputed the outcome.

Cornell Tech with journalists, academics and polling industry leaders providing analysis.

Accurate polling increasingly depends on gathering data in multiple ways, and that escalates the cost and complexity.

“We’re at a crossroads where the methods that have worked the best continue to fare well perhaps but are more expensive than ever, and we need to try new things,” said Nate Cohn, chief political analyst for the New York Times.

The Collaborative Midterm Survey offers a roadmap toward that future, said Jennifer Agiesta, CNN Director of Polling and Election Analytics. “This is the kind of work our industry needs so that we can figure out how to move forward in a world where the ground is shifting,” she said.

“The results of this effort will inform political leaders and the survey industry as they prepare for the 2024 elections and look for the best methods to ensure all voices are represented in the polls,” said Enns, who is also the Robert S. Harrison Director of the Cornell Center for Social Sciences.

Co-principal investigators were Jonathon P. Schuldt, associate professor in the Department of Communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and executive director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, and Colleen L. Barry, inaugural dean of the Cornell Brooks School.

“Developing new approaches to accurately measuring voter attitudes and preferences in both the midterm and general election cycles has never been more important,” Barry said, noting that the last large, national scale midterm survey was in 2002.

The researchers revealed the results from the Cornell-led 2022 Collaborative Midterm Survey at a January event at

The data and methods were made public Jan. 20, part of a wide-ranging effort by the survey directors to emphasize transparency, experiment with new methodologies, and improve the framework for understanding democracy in the face of fast changing technologies and declining response rates.

Developing new approaches to accurately measuring voter attitudes and preferences in both the midterm and general election cycles has never been more important.

JONATHON SCHULDT

COLLEEN BARRY

irina island images

irina island images

“The multimethod survey offered an unprecedented opportunity to understand the preferences, attitudes, and behaviors of groups that are increasingly difficult to analyze in traditional surveys,” Schuldt said.

The Cornell investigators selected three organizations to collaborate with them on the survey; each used two sampling methodologies to ask a core set of identical questions during the same time period. The organizations – Gradient Metrics, the Iowa Social Science Research Center and SSRS – asked 205 questions touching on 14 topics.

One set of survey responses suggest the degree of extreme partisan animosity in the U.S. is sometimes overstated. Participants were asked if they would engage in pro-social activities such as helping a stranded motorist or calling 911 during an emergency if the recipient of the good deed was a Republican or a Democrat. It didn’t really matter. Results showed that in all cases, willingness to engage in pro-social behavior was overwhelming – 84% to 94% – and differences

between in-party and out-party help were small. Respondents were equally likely to say they would help those of an opposite party in an emergency.

Even in a non-emergency situation familiar to many parents, survey results suggested that partisan animosity was minimal. Respondents were asked how likely or unlikely they would be to encourage their child to be friendly to a new kid if they learned the parents were Democrats or Republicans. When the politics of the new kid’s parents matched the respondent’s politics, 92% said they would encourage their child to be friendly. When the politics of the new kid’s parents opposed the respondent’s politics, 86% still said the same.

“We must be careful to represent the partisan landscape accurately,” researchers Enns and Schuldt wrote in 3Streams “A disproportionate focus on rare negative events risks promoting the belief that partisan animosity has undermined everyday acts of kindness and decency.”

David Wilson, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley and a senior adviser to the Cornell team, said the 2022 Collaborative Midterm Survey could transform the study of political attitudes and behavior during election seasons.

“The principal investigators have assembled some of the most innovative minds in survey methodology and public opinion and partnered them with diverse practitioners in academia and the profession,” Wilson said. “The result is a new framework for investigating our democracy, advancing the science of surveys and politics.”

The result is a new framework for investigating our democracy, advancing the science of surveys and politics .

PETER ENNS

irina island images

How security crises can spur state-building in Latin America

Latin America has become the world’s most violent region outside of a war zone, including the only one in which homicide rates have increased in the 21st century, according to the U.N.

Although public safety is now the top concern across Latin America, some countries have succeeded in raising taxes on the wealthy to address the issue while others have not. In his new book, “Contemporary State Building: Elite Taxation and Public Safety in Latin America,” Gustavo Flores-Macías analyzes the key factors determining such outcomes – and explains how they provide a blueprint for all developing nations.

Flores-Macías, associate vice provost for international affairs and a professor of government and public policy in the College of Arts and Science and Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, discussed the book.

Question: You argue that public safety crises across Latin America aren’t themselves sufficient to win economic elites’ support for higher taxes. Why not?

Answer: Nobody likes to pay taxes, and economic elites are no exception. But elites are better able to circumvent tax obligations than most people: They can lobby the legislators who write the tax codes, hire accountants to exploit loopholes or transfer their money to a different jurisdiction. State-building accounts expect elites to become more inclined to shoulder a greater tax burden when a crisis – wars, for example – severely threatens their way of life. But I find that violent crime is not enough to assuage elites’ concerns that governments will waste their tax money, embezzle it or steer it to a different priority. Even though violent crime can take a serious toll on elites’ safety – and that of their families and businesses – when it comes to taxation the burden is concentrated and the benefits are diffuse and may not even materialize. The right conditions need to be created to make a greater tax burden more tolerable.

Q: What are some of the conditions that you found enable elite taxation in some countries, while attempts in others have failed?

A: Governments have to meaningfully assuage elites’ concerns about how their tax money will be spent, and successful experiences typically share two features. The first is strong linkages with economic elites, which are more prevalent among right-of-center governments and often take the form of formal and informal consultation mechanisms. The second is a tax design that makes the burden more tolerable for elites, often

by earmarking the tax revenue for public safety, incorporating a sunset provision to shorten the time horizon, and mandating spending oversight mechanisms. But absent strong linkages between government and elites, mistrust toward the government is much harder to overcome, regardless of the tax design.

Q: Why in some countries are the wealthy more willing to pay more for security than other services like education or health care?

A: In countries with high levels of violent crime, personal safety becomes a priority, and the demand for public safety takes preeminence over other public goods, including education and health care. When public education and health care are deficient, elites can send their children to private schools and go to a private hospital. But safety is much harder to substitute privately, and one can do so only up to a point. Even if elites live in gated communities and surround themselves with bodyguards, the risk of victimization leading to personal and material losses continues to be significant. This inability to solve privately a major public safety deficit is a key reason why violent crime can generate windows of opportunity for state-building.

Q: Do wealth taxes focused on improving security help build better states and democracies, or just give elites more influence?

A: Taxes on elites have served a dual purpose in building stronger states in Latin America. On the one hand, they can be an effective way of raising considerable revenue with progressivity in mind – that is, without affecting the least affluent sectors. On the other hand, they can help to strengthen the security apparatus through better staffing, training and equipment. Elite taxation for public safety has been appealing because it is politically popular to concentrate the tax burden on the wealthy, while the benefits from improved public safety are enjoyed more broadly in society. The taxes are not making elites more powerful, but they often get to participate in the oversight of how the tax revenue is spent. Insofar as they contribute to improved public safety conditions, elite taxes can contribute toward improving the quality of democracy. ▲ Continued on page 27

GUSTAVO FLORES-MACÍAS

Local floodplain home buyouts can inform federal plans

As climate change threatens residential areas, a longtime federal home buyout program – designed to eliminate risk to people and property – has become bureaucratically inaccessible and inequitable. To offer solutions, Brooks School senior lecturer Rebecca Morgenstern Brenner and collaborators compared federal home buyout policies with regional and state programs, demonstrating that coordinating local strategies at the federal level may make these buyouts more equitable and effective.

The work “Equitable buyouts? Learning from State, County and Local Floodplain Management Programs” was published in the journal Climatic Change. “We have a major challenge with a spatial mismatch between where people currently live and where it is safe for people to live,” said Linda Shi, assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning. “How do we respond to that kind of a challenge?” The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA – an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – runs the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), which accounts for 70% of federally funded home buyouts. It’s bought more than 43,000 homes since 1989, usually after a presidential disaster declaration. The buyouts aim to reduce flood insurance liability and turn the property into green space.

Problems with building homes on floodplains or coastal areas are inherently intricate. The researchers examined the vulnerability of homeowners in floodplains, who are offered a buyout, and what might have been left out of the decision-making process. HMGP procedures favor single-family homeowners, nuclear households, those with a clear mortgage, U.S. citizenship and the ability to endure a burdensome process, according to the paper.

Households with upside-down mortgages – where home loan debt exceeds the pre-disaster market value – are ineligible for a buyout, since such a payment would not resolve the debt.

“When you’re looking at complex problems, it is important to see them through a transdisciplinary lens,” Brenner said. “It helps that we examine these problems from different fields to best understand what these communities are going to face.”

In the paper, Cornell researchers and students examined five different jurisdictions, which offer insight into how buyouts can be more effectively implemented:

• New Jersey, a flood-prone, densely populated state, has seen at least eight federal flood-related disasters in the past 60 years. New Jersey’s buyout program, Blue Acres, has a diverse staff that helps homeowners overcome bureaucratic hurdles and relocate faster. To date, the program has purchased 1,200 properties and demolished 700 properties in flood-susceptible inland municipalities.

• Washington has endured 30 federal flood disaster declarations since 1956, the researchers found. Today, the state promotes the Floodplains by Design program, which integrates floodplain management, salmon recovery and habitat restoration –encouraging communities to solve water, flood, fish, and farm challenges.

• North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County sits on the Catawba River Basin, a network of urban creeks that flash flood regularly during hurricanes. Local floods are not large enough to trigger federal disaster relief, so the region set up stormwater fees to fund an annual local budget for home buyouts – generally for homeowners that would not qualify for federal aid – an approach that enjoys popular public approval.

• Austin, Texas experiences extreme fluctuations in rainfall and is vulnerable to flash flooding, which is exacerbated by climate change. Thirty years ago, Austin formed the Watershed Protection Department, modeled after the federal Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Act of 1970. This group provides real estate and relocation assistance to those displaced and draws on funding sources to help owners bridge the cost between their old home and relocation.

• Harris County, Texas – which includes Houston – has suffered seven major floods since 2016, including Hurricane Harvey that caused $125 billion in damage. Before 2018, the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) spent $340 million buying out more than 3,000 properties and plans over 3,000 more under a new bond, the researchers said. Community groups claimed infrastructure investments were disproportionately deployed in wealthy white areas, so the Harris County Commission asked HCFCD to account for social equity and set the goal to assist people likely to experience the worst impacts first.

A residential buyout parcel in Chehalis, Washington, shown here, is part of Washington state’s Floodplains by Design program. Photo: Matt Nakamoto ’23.

How much money is too much for obesity treatments?

JOHN CAWLEY

Anew generation of effective weight loss drugs is now available in the U.S., but the drugs’ high cost highlights a reality hurting the nation’s economy and those who want to shed pounds: Obesity is expensive, and so are the treatments.

Economist John Cawley has spent his career studying the economics of obesity, including the economic causes of obesity, the economic consequences of obesity – such as direct medical care costs and the indirect costs of job absenteeism – and evaluating policies and programs to prevent and reduce obesity.

He is a professor in the Department of Economics and in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy as well as the director of Cornell in Washington. He serves on the External Scientific Panel of the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research, which advises the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Agriculture and other groups on priorities for obesity research. Cawley is a contributor to the forthcoming fifth edition of the “Handbook of Obesity,” a standard reference in the field, and in November he presented his research in a President’s Symposium at Obesity Week, the conference of the interdisciplinary research organization The Obesity Society.

Cawley answered our questions about the economics of obesity.

Question: The medical complications of obesity are well known, ranging from diabetes to heart disease and cancer. You’ve recently been speaking and writing about a topic that is less familiar: the economic costs of obesity. What are they?

Answer: The costs of obesity can be categorized as direct medical care costs and indirect productivity costs. As you said, obesity is associated with a higher risk of a wide range of medical conditions, including heart disease, stroke, cancer and Type 2 diabetes. These conditions are expensive to the health care system; we estimate that obesity in adults raises annual medical

care costs by $2,781 per year, or 107%, relative to those of healthy weight. Nationally, the direct medical care costs of obesity total $289 billion per year. Obesity increases costs in all categories of care, including inpatient hospital stays, outpatient doctor visits and prescription drugs. Interestingly, medical care costs don’t change much with body mass index (a measure of weight-forheight) until one is well into the obese range, and then costs rise exponentially. So, what’s really expensive is not obesity, but extreme obesity.

The indirect costs of obesity arise from lower workplace productivity, such as increased job absenteeism. Relative to people of healthy weight, workers with obesity miss three additional work days per year due to poor health; the aggregate annual cost of this nationwide is between $14.9 and $29.8 billion.

Q: What’s confounding about this situation is that treatments for obesity are available and increasingly effective. But many people aren’t using them, even with celebrities such as Elon Musk vouching for them. Can you give us some examples?

A: One example of an effective treatment is bariatric surgery. After such surgery, patients average about 29% weight loss at one year, and many patients experience remission of their Type 2 diabetes. However, the surgery is invasive, can have complications and costs roughly $25,000.

Historically, anti-obesity drugs led to only modest weight loss, and several were withdrawn for causing dangerous side effects. However, a new generation of weight loss drugs called GLP-1s seem to result in perhaps two to three times more weight loss than previous drugs. These drugs enhance insulin secretion, slow gastric emptying and reduce appetite and food intake. They’re also much more expensive – around $1,200 per month, compared to the previous generation’s cost of $200 or less.

▲ Continued on page 27

Are costly new prescription drugs worth the price?

As more and more prescription drugs hit the market with eyepopping price tags, it can be difficult to know whether they’re worth it.

Some countries use a relatively straightforward cost-effectiveness analysis to decide. The United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, for instance, covers medications based on a single threshold of £20,000-£30,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained.

Such cost-effectiveness analysis helps countries with single-payer health care to control costs. It has been suggested as a way for Medicare and other U.S. insurers to do the same.

But using a single threshold to decide whether a particular medication is costeffective assumes that all patients value what a medication offers in the same way. As a result, this one-size-fits-all approach can broadly paint costly drugs as not worth the price and prevent new drugs from entering the market, creating a barrier to treatment for patients who would value costlier care.

These are the findings of a study published in the July 2022 edition of the Journal of Health Economics. Authors include Sean Nicholson, director of the Sloan Program in Health Administration in the Brooks School and a professor in the Department of Economics, Claudio Lucarelli, associate professor of

Healthcare Management at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Leonard Davis Institute Senior Fellow, and Nicholas Tilipman of the University of Illinois/Chicago.

The researchers suggest that a better approach than relying on a single threshold would be to also consider the preferences of different patient subpopulations when assessing value. They developed a series of qualityadjusted price indices that accounted for preferences among patients and their prescribing physicians.

They focused on colorectal cancer—a disease for which the 6-month cost of medications jumped from $127 in 1993 to $36,300 in 2005. They assessed the value of the different drug regimens using a model that accounts for various outcome measures, the convenience of administration, patient tolerance for side effects, and willingness to accept greater toxicity for greater efficacy.

Using this approach that accounts for differences in patient preferences, here’s what they found: While efficacy gains from newer drugs did not justify their high prices for the population on average, they were justified for sicker, late-stage cancer patients. According to the model, if high-cost drugs were restricted based on an average cost-effectiveness analysis, then the sickest patients would experience a welfare loss.

“A uniform rule preventing patients with advanced cancer from receiving newer treatments could make their illness even less tolerable because they have no choice but to use a medication that is less effective or comes with more side effects,” Nicholson said.

Assessing value is complicated, and few studies have examined whether the value of pharmaceuticals is rising or falling once their attributes and consumers’ valuations of those attributes are considered. With this study, the authors show how it can be done.

They propose that health insurance needs to find ways to “allow for differences in value to express themselves in the market”—such as patients with advanced cancer placing greater value on hope and being willing to pay more for drugs that offer the possibility of longer survival. Suggested options include (1) insurers offering a variety of plans with varying premiums that accommodate differences in preferences and (2) allowing patients to internalize treatment costs at the margin by using “top-up” insurance, in which patients pay the incremental cost relative to a fully covered baseline treatment.

These suggestions, along with the novel model described in the paper, provide new perspectives for how to value new— and often—expensive prescription drugs.

SEAN NICHOLSON

American life in the COVID years

COVID stress on mothers

Afirst-of-its-kind study of parents’ work arrangements during the pandemic shows that mothers working from home increased their supervisory parenting fully two hours more than fathers did, and women were also more likely to adapt their work schedules to new parenting demands.

The study used time diaries to examine how working parents managed school closures and childcare disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An article detailing the findings, “Parents’ Work Arrangements and Gendered Time Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” was published recently in the Journal of Marriage and Family by Musick, Thomas Lyttelton of the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark and Yale University sociologist Emma Zang.

The researchers leveraged data from the 2017–20 American Time Use Survey. A representative sample of Americans recorded their daily activities in detail, noting what they were doing, how long they spent on each task, where they were, and who was present. Innovative matching methods were used to compare how parents working at home and on site during the pandemic spent their time, compared with how parents allotted their time prior to the pandemic, resulting in these key findings:

KELLY MUSICK

the parenting time of mothers and fathers during the pandemic. In fact, moms disproportionately increased their time playing with children during the pandemic, and dads took on more household chores. That’s a reverse from typical patterns, in which fathers tend to spend more time in play and mothers in housework.

“We found that women working from home shouldered more of the parenting burden during the pandemic,” said researcher Kelly Musick, professor of public policy and sociology and senior associate dean of research in the Brooks School. “While the shift to work from home offered more flexibility, the lack of separation between work and family contributed to more challenging work environments, especially among mothers.”

• There was no increase among parents working from home or on site in total childcare time as a primary focus, such as when feeding or bathing, playing, or reading to the kids. The added hours were in supervisory tasks among those working from home –monitoring activities and making sure young ones were safe, while also doing other activities, often paid work. That’s where the two-hour gap between women and men emerged. “The much larger increase among mothers relative to fathers in supervisory care points to mothers’ disproportionate responsibility for children,” Musick said.

• When activities did not involve multitasking or affect work duties, there was a more similar change in

• While the pandemic afforded parents working from home more time with children, the majority of that time was spent juggling paid work. All mothers –both working on site and at home – also altered their work schedules during the pandemic, increasing nonstandard hours and spells of work throughout the day, presumably to better accommodate increased parenting demands. Parents working on site experienced relatively small changes in time use, leaving open questions about how they met the increased supervisory demands of pandemic-related disruptions to schools and childcare.

While the study focused on the pandemic, the findings have important implications for work and family in a post-pandemic world characterized by more remote work. “The pandemic highlights a work culture unaccommodating of care demands and a policy infrastructure illequipped to support working parents,” Musick said. “Change is needed at both the public and private levels to better accommodate the health, productivity, and well-being of working families.”

COVID stress on teachers and endangered children

School closures during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic may have resulted in at least 5,500 fewer reports of endangered children, according to a new study showing teachers’ essential role in the early detection and reporting of child maltreatment.

Time spent in school and the resulting contact with teachers and other school staff leads to increases in reports of child maltreatment – cases that would not have been discovered otherwise, the study found.

“Child maltreatment is a vexing problem in the U.S.,” said Maria Fitzpatrick, professor of economics and public policy in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. “To protect children, we need to better understand why so many are maltreated – 13% according to one study and 4 in 10 according to another. Maltreatment has significant costs for society. Early detection is crucial because it leads to quicker intervention and that can result in providing a child with a safe, permanent home.

“We ask so much of our teachers and so many of them have performed with great courage and perseverance during the pandemic,” said Fitzpatrick, who is also senior associate dean of academic affairs for the Cornell Brooks School and associate vice provost for social sciences in the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation. “As a society, we owe more to them so that they can do a difficult part of their job with skill and take the steps necessary to protect the children they see every day.”

The study by Fitzpatrick and co-authors Cassandra Benson and

Samuel Bondurant, “Beyond Reading, Writing and Arithmetic: The Role of Teachers and Schools in Reporting Child Maltreatment,” was published in the Journal of Human Resources.

Maltreatment is not limited to child abuse. According to the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, maltreatment refers to “the quality of care a child is receiving from those responsible for the child. Maltreatment occurs when a parent or other person legally responsible for the care of a child harms a child or places a child in imminent danger of harm by failing to exercise the minimum degree of care in providing the child with any of the following: food, clothing, shelter, education or medical care when financially able to do so.”

Prior to the pandemic, the researchers sought to define educators’ contribution to identifying maltreated children. That long-term project took on new urgency when schools started to close in the spring of 2020. The number of maltreatment reports dropped, despite concerns that children were more at risk because of rising financial stress on families and more time at home, and even as injuries to children were becoming more frequent and more severe.

In the first two years of the pandemic, kindergarten enrollment plummeted, and older children missed three months of schooling during the spring of 2020 and many more days the following school year. Children were cut off from educators, who are often required by state law to report evidence of maltreatment.

“Our conservative calculations based on our results indicate that approximately

MARIA FITZPATRICK

5,500 to 8,000 reports were missed during the pandemic because schools were closed or because children were not enrolled,” the researchers concluded.

Additional time in school leads to substantially more maltreatment investigations, they found.

For example, the number of investigated reports for 5-year-old children is 5% to 10% higher for those who are eligible to enroll in kindergarten at age 5 than for those who are not, the researchers said.

“Moreover,” they wrote, “the number of investigated child maltreatment reports is 30% to 65% higher at the beginning and end of the school year compared to the beginning and end of summer when children are not regularly interacting with teachers.”

The researchers said their findings have three major policy implications:

• Discussions about the amount of time students spend in school, including the length of the school day and public preschool, should include estimates of the improvement of child well-being that would result.

• The ramifications of the recent increase in homeschooling must be better understood. The surge in homeschooling may be resulting in fewer child maltreatment reports because children are not interacting with the mandated reporters in school systems.

• Training of education professionals in identifying and reporting maltreatment is uneven. More consistent, higherquality training will help teachers detect more endangered children.

COVID stress on our polarized politics

The halting, confusing response to COVID-19 in the U.S. resulted from decisions by President Donald Trump and his allies to politicize the pandemic by associating it with his own fate in office, according to a new book by a Cornell author.

In the new book, “Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID,” survey data demonstrates how the Trump administration’s partisan response to COVID-19 led ordinary citizens to prioritize what was good for their “team” rather than what was good for their country.

“The catastrophic death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States was not inevitable,” wrote Thomas Pepinsky, the Walter F. LaFeber Professor of Government in the College of Arts and Sciences and a member of the faculty in the Brooks School, and co-authors Shana Kushner Gadarian and Sara Wallace Goodman.

“We as Americans must understand this pandemic so as to reconcile the past and attempt to move forward together. The pandemic was a new kind of civil war, American versus American waged through distrust, enmity and misinformation. And it was a cold war. We didn’t have to brandish firearms. Our weapon was politics, and the battlefield is the air we breathe.”

The authors conducted a novel public opinion survey so that they could track changes in how Americans saw public health measures such as handwashing and social distancing and then the availability of vaccines. They surveyed a statistically representative sample of 3,000 citizens, checking in with them six times during the pandemic. Both the size of the sample and the repeated questioning make the results especially revealing, they said.

The survey was first conducted as COVID-19 erupted in spring 2020. It detected the seeds of the growing divide and demonstrated the challenge confronting public health officials: “Community spread cannot be stopped if four out of 10 Republicans keep meeting with people outside their households. It also would mean that more convincing and pro-health messaging would need to take place in these communities, not less.”

The survey also showed a continuing emotional divide about the severity of the pandemic. Republicans downplayed it and were reluctant to adopt behaviors to limit the spread. Democrats were more worried about getting sick and blamed the Trump administration.

“Americans like to believe that wars, economic crises and other moments of national hardship bring us all together,” Pepinsky and his co-authors wrote. “But the feelings of anger, anxiety and hope prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic

TOM PEPINSKY

divided Americans in partisan terms rather than uniting them.”

To reverse the partisan divide over public health, the authors recommend several changes to public policies and public attitudes:

• A better, more inclusive, and more equitable health care system with reforms to the way that health care is purchased, subsidized and delivered.

• Positive communication campaigns to tout the benefits of public health achievements such as vaccines so that Americans see getting a shot as a civic obligation.

• Inclusion of social scientists on government panels on public health and climate science. When science needs to change minds and get people to act, social scientists can help craft messages that resonate with different groups.

“We as Americans must understand this pandemic so as to reconcile the past and attempt to move forward together. But it is not something that we leave behind. Like the virus, pandemic politics has become endemic too,” the authors conclude.

The pandemic was a new kind of civil war, American versus American waged through distrust, enmity and misinformation.

Inside Pandemic Politics… an excerpt:

“In the same way that we often hear about red states and blue states, we can think of “red” and “blue” Americans. These aren’t just words that describe one’s politics; instead, they capture a way of life. For instance, during a colorful interview between Michael Anton, a former Trump national security official, and National Public Radio host Steve Inskeep, Anton identified himself as a “red person” who had formerly been a “blue person.” A blue person might listen to National Public Radio, drive a Subaru, recycle, watch independent films, support pro-choice politics, and live in a blue state. A red person might drive a truck, watch Fox News, attend an evangelical Christian church, and support Blue Lives Matter. And, as it turns out, red and blue Americans respond differently to a pandemic. Deep partisan polarization created two pandemic realities in America: one where the pandemic was taken seriously and one where the pandemic was an inconvenience.

“For many Americans the pandemic meant washing hands, wearing masks, avoiding contact with loved ones, canceling travel, and waiting for a safe vaccine or a proven treatment. For others the pandemic was overblown, mostly a problem for the old and infirm similar to the seasonal flu and certainly not a virus that would require major changes to how Americans lived. Many among this group were skeptical of science and vulnerable to misinformation about the virus and vaccines.

“The consequences have been tragic, as those who ignore public health guidance have become particularly vulnerable to falling victim to the coronavirus themselves, thus

prolonging the pandemic. When it comes to a communicable virus that requires collective action, partisan polarization undermines a government’s ability to respond effectively. At the highest levels of government, polarization made the federal response slower and less effective. Polarization determined which states would receive federal aid, on what terms states would mitigate viral spread, and which children would attend school in person or online. It determined which experts to listen to and who citizens should trust. It determined who wore masks and who did not. It fostered an environment of low trust in government and in each other. In total, partisan polarization produced a public response to the pandemic in which individuals assessed risks, formulated attitudes, and participated in certain health-related behaviors (or not) because of their party identification. But this was not inevitable.

“Yes, America faced difficult structural and social preconditions that would make any pandemic hard. Yes, Americans were sharply divided by partisanship at the outset of the crisis. But polarization is not an inevitable barrier to collective action or to a coordinated, effective response

to a pandemic. Partisan and other forms of polarization are common around the world, and deeply divided countries such as the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Taiwan did not make partisanship the lens through which to see or experience the COVID-19 pandemic. Partisan divisions may be deeper and wider in the United States than in any other advanced democracy, but this did not make their manifestation in response to COVID-19— over issues ranging from perceptions of the government’s handling of the crisis to mask wearing and contact tracing—inevitable.

“The crucial factor that differentiates the United States from other highincome democracies is that the Trump administration chose to make the pandemic political. In the early days of COVID-19, there was a cacophony of conflicting messages, both within and between the scientific community and politicians, as politicians were figuring out what to do and as scientists continued to learn what the virus was and how it evolved. When people are concerned about health crises, they usually trust medical experts more than political leaders and want to hear from them. These early days were the window of opportunity during which political leaders faced a choice: they could put experts out front and center and assemble a united, bipartisan strategy to combat the virus, or they could choose to exploit partisanship, activating political divisions to further their individual and partisan goals. The Trump administration chose partisanship.”

From “Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID”

(Princeton University Press)

By: Shana Kushner Gadarian, Sara Wallace Goodman, and Thomas B. Pepinsky

Rapid response media research will promote equity

Citing the urgent need for more effective and equitable health communication, three universities are collaborating on a unique research endeavor that will quickly identify developing public health issues, address conflicting messages and counter misinformation, funded with a $5 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the dire consequences of conflicting health recommendations and their politicization, alongside the propagation of misinformation,” said Jeff Niederdeppe, professor of communication in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, who is leading the project.

“The specific sources of conflict and misinformation have been unpredictable and unrelenting, highlighting the need for our vision to be nimble and rapidly responsive to issues as they emerge in real time,” said Niederdeppe, also Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development in the Cornell Brooks School, professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and codirector of the Cornell Center for Health Equity (CCHEq). “Our goal is to develop community-engaged research on the content and effects of media messaging, and use that research to develop strategies to promote health and racial equity.”

Researchers from Cornell, Wesleyan University and the University of Minnesota plan to speed up an academic research process that can take years to a matter of months using three interlocking research hubs:

• Wesleyan’s Media Tracking Hub will monitor news coverage and political commercials to quickly identify developing social safety net issues and messaging with racial equity implications.

• Cornell’s Media Impact on Mindsets and Values Hub will conduct surveys and experiments to determine the mosteffective messaging for promoting health and racial equity.

• Minnesota’s Engagement, Dissemination and Implementation Hub will work with journalists as well as public health officials, affected communities and advocacy organizations to put the research findings into practice.

As a team, the researchers will investigate how media sources portray racial and health inequality in social safety net policies and a variety of other health and racial equity-related issues. They will measure the impact of stories designed to advance social change on the public and policymakers. They will share findings on evidence-based communication strategies that can accelerate support for targeted investments for improving health and racial equity. Finally, they will establish a model for effective research-practice partnerships so that accurate information can rapidly enter the nation’s media ecosystem.

Niederdeppe described how that process will work in practice: When an issue develops concerning government programs –for example, early childhood education or Medicaid expansion – the researchers will quickly identify what they call “windows of opportunity” in the public debate. When the window opens,

journalists and advocates will be provided with timely, accurate and empirically informed information to share through their stories and channels. The information will be disseminated to key stakeholders, including local journalists, advocates and health organizations.

“Not many media researchers focus on local media, but we think it’s important because local media attracts large audiences and is more trusted than national news,” Niederdeppe said. “The quality of the health information on local news leaves much to be desired, but the flip side of that means there are opportunities to strengthen the health content. When we think about advancing health equity and a culture of health, local media can have a local impact on policy discussions.”

This project is unprecedented in its goals, scope and integration of teams from the three universities, which collectively call themselves the Collaborative on Media and Messaging for Health and Social Policy (COMM). The collaborative will share its findings through a dedicated website that will include media tracking reports to provide insight on immediately actionable issues. COMM will share the results of its message testing experiments, and the three hubs will produce reports, blog posts and academic journal articles.

Joining Niederdeppe on the project will be Jamila Michener, Colleen Barry, Monica Cornejo and Neil Lewis, Jr. ’13. Michener is an associate professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences and in the Brooks School as well as Senior Associate

Dean of Public Engagement in the Brooks School and codirector of CCHEq. Barry is Inaugural Dean of the Brooks School. Cornejo and Lewis are assistant professors in the Department of Communication at CALS where Lewis also serves as co-director of the Action Research Collaborative. He also has a secondary appointment as assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Other key contributors to COMM include Co-PI Sarah Gollust and Rebekah Nagler of the University of Minnesota and Erika Franklin Fowler, Laura Baum and Steven Moore of Wesleyan. Faculty, staff, students and postdoctoral fellows at each university, along with other community-based partners, will also be involved in the initiative.

LEFT TO RIGHT, TOP ROW: JEFF NIEDERDEPPE, JAMILA MICHENER, COLLEEN BARRY BOTTOM ROW: MONICA CORNEJO, NEIL LEWIS, JR.

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the dire consequences of conflicting health recommendations and their politicization, alongside the propagation of misinformation.

- Jeff Niederdeppe

Brooks School faculty briefs

Fitzpatrick elected to National Academy of Social Insurance

Maria Fitzpatrick, Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, a professor in the Economics Department, and Associate Vice Provost for Social Sciences in the Cornell Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, was elected to the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) in recognition of her national prominence as a scholar in the areas of child and family policy, the economics of education, and retirement policy.

She is one of 52 experts elected by NASI and the only Cornell University scholar in this year’s group of honorees. Brooks School Dean Colleen Barry was elected in 2022.

The national nonprofit organization advances solutions to challenges facing the nation by increasing public understanding of how social insurance contributes to economic security. This mission encompasses established social insurance programs – Social Security, Medicare, Workers’ Compensation, and Unemployment Insurance – as well as related policy areas, including Medicaid, long-term services and supports, paid leave, other social assistance programs, and private employee benefits.

Fitzpatrick’s research has focused on early childhood education policies, higher education, teacher compensation, benefits and labor supply, teacher pensions and retirement, child maltreatment, incarceration’s effects on children and mothers, and the effects of retirement on the health of older Americans. Fitzpatrick is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, as well as an affiliate in the CESifo Research Network, the Cornell Population Center, and the Center for the Study of Inequality.

That research was one of the factors cited in Fitzpatrick’s NASI nomination: “She continues to conduct high quality research in the areas of retirement policies and Social Security. She actively mentors future leaders and researchers as a dissertation committee member for many students. In her senior administrative roles at Cornell, she has been instrumental in building and shaping educational programs that train students in public policy at the undergraduate, masters and doctoral levels.”

MARIA FITZPATRICK

ALEXANDRA DUFRESNE

CHRIS BARRETT

Dufresne named a Global Public Voice

Alexandra Dufresne, the Director of the State Policy Advocacy Clinic and a senior lecturer at the Brooks School, has been selected as a Global Public Voice by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. The Global Public Voices program promotes faculty expertise to shape public debates about global policy issues and advocate for a more just and equitable future.

Dufresne and nine other Cornell faculty will engage with national and international news media to make their voices heard on nationalism and populism, civil-military relations, international human rights, inequality and civil engagement, grassroots movements and more.

Global Public Voices works closely with Cornell’s Media Relations Office. Fellows attend monthly collaborative discussions with peers, where they receive practical media and outreach training, including support in building an international public profile and sessions on writing effective op-eds, funding proposals and policy briefs.

Dufresne is a lawyer who works at the intersection of law and public policy. She directs the new State Policy Advocacy Clinic at the Brooks School of Public Policy, in which undergraduate and master’s students work with policymakers, academics, community members, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations on state-level policy initiatives in a wide range of areas, including health policy, immigrant rights, children’s rights, criminal justice reform, and sustainability. She also teaches international human rights, immigration law and policy, and children’s law and policy.

Dufresne spent most of her career working as a lawyer for children and refugees at leading NGOs, including the Center for Children’s Advocacy, Connecticut Voices for Children, and CLINIC/Boston College Immigration and Asylum Project, where she led law students in the representation of detained refugees and immigrants. Working closely with community partners, including youth in foster care, she has led successful advocacy campaigns in Connecticut and before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

Dufresne received her undergraduate degree from Yale University and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. She clerked for the Hon. Martha Craig Daughtrey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 2001-2002.

Barrett to lead UN agency’s new agrifood initiative

Chris Barrett, a professor in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of Applied Economics and Management in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, has been selected to lead an initiative aimed to meet looming global food needs in a healthy, equitable, resilient and sustainable manner.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations introduced its Agrifood Systems Technologies and Innovations Outlook (ATIO) initiative at the World Food Forum in Rome last October. ATIO will be an FAO flagship publication published biennially for the U.N. group to disseminate information on science, technology and innovation in agrifood systems – which include food production, storage, postharvest handling, transportation, processing, distribution and consumption – around the world.

“The world needs to accelerate the rate of transformation of agrifood systems,” Barrett said at the Rome forum’s plenary session. “Science, technology and innovation are absolutely central to that,” he said. “It’s as much institutional and policy innovation, as it is new cultivars or better machinery or clever digital methods. It’s the bundling of the social and technical together ... to reduce [climate change] pressure on the planet while improving equity, health [and] sustainability outcomes.”

Barrett believes this new venture is an interdisciplinary opportunity for Cornell faculty, students, alumni and staff to engage and to achieve a high-level impact.

“Cornell is incredibly diverse and this project showcases all of Cornell’s strengths,” Barrett said. “ATIO is consistent with the climate change initiative being championed across campus. It is deeply tied to global hubs and the global-engagement agenda.”

Said Qu Dongyu, director-general of the FAO: “I am convinced that the launch of this innovative initiative will guarantee that essential data and evidence needed for the transformation of our global agrifood systems becomes accessible to all those who need it, particularly decision-makers.”

Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy celebrates 10 years of championing a better built environment

Ten years after it was founded with the goal of becoming the world’s leading academic center for infrastructure policy research and education, the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy (CPIP) is achieving that aim while attracting major, new financial support.

“The built environment runs on brain power,” CPIP founder Rick Geddes said. Geddes, an economist, is a professor in the Brooks School and a member of Cornell’s Department of Economics. “Our focus during our first ten years is also our commitment for the next ten years: advance knowledge that improves the delivery, maintenance, operation, and technological sophistication of physical, social and digital infrastructure.”

Highlights of CPIP’s tenth year include:

• Moving into its new home in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. The move facilitates the interdisciplinary research and academic programs that

are a CPIP hallmark. Under Inaugural Dean Colleen Barry, the Brooks School is quickly becoming one of the nation’s pre-eminent public policy institutions. “CPIP is a natural fit for Brooks,” Barry said. “We are proud of CPIP’s accomplishments and its growing influence in a critically important policy area.”

• Securing significant new financial support with a major gift from Antin Infrastructure Partners, a leading private equity firm focused on infrastructure investments, based in London, Paris, New York, and Singapore. The gift will name a crucial leadership position, the CPIP Executive Directorship, and provide flexible funding to help the program grow and thrive over the next five years. Antin Managing Partner Mark Crosbie is a member of CPIP’s Board of Advisors. “Our corporate gift will help support Cornell’s premier program in infrastructure policy as a 21st-century leader,” Crosbie said. “Throughout history, technological advancement and societal change have been drivers of innovation, with infrastructure critical

RICK GEDDES, FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE CORNELL PROGRAM IN INFRASTRUCTURE POLICY

to facilitating progress for the benefit of society. Antin is committed to educating the next generation of infrastructure leaders to enable that progress.”

• Announcing a partnership with Hodes Weill, a leading, global capital advisory firm focused on real estate, infrastructure, and other real assets with offices in New York, Denver, Hong Kong, London, and Amsterdam. This partnership will launch the Infrastructure Allocations Monitor in Spring 2023, which will gauge institutional investor sentiment regarding investments in infrastructure.

• Preparing the next generation of industry and government leaders through its support of the Brooks School’s Infrastructure Policy, Management and Finance Fellows program. That program includes graduate students across Cornell and innovative classes that recently have had students developing policies to support self-driving cars in Ithaca, promoting rooftop solar power installations in Puerto Rico, and making water treatment facilities resilient to climate change. John Foote ’74, lecturer and member of the Brooks School Dean's Advisory Council, leads those classes and has been instrumental in CPIP’s growth. “Our students are taking on important roles in the infrastructure space and the feedback we are getting is they are well prepared to take on the challenges of infrastructure in the 21st century," Foote said.

• Hosting Biden Administration senior infrastructure adviser Mitch Landrieu for an internationally streamed program at the American Enterprise Institute, moderated by Geddes. CPIP also partnered with Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction at Cambridge University to sponsor an unprecedented conference for infrastructure thought leaders at Cornell Tech in New York City.

Sensing a need for a university program focused on infrastructure policy, Geddes founded CPIP in 2012. Then, through his research and congressional testimony, he helped push infrastructure policy issues to the national forefront at an auspicious time. The landmark $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act of 2021, the $433 billion Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, and the 2022 $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act all included major changes in U.S. infrastructure policy.

Geddes researches the funding, financing, permitting, operation, and maintenance of heavy civil and social infrastructure, with a focus on the adoption of new technologies. His research has examined network-wide road pricing, infrastructure resilience, and innovative infrastructure financing via public-private partnerships.

From the start, industry leaders have supported CPIP’s efforts and several now sit on its advisory board, including Board Chair Stephen Beatty. Based in Toronto, he is KPMG’s Global Head of Infrastructure and the Chairman of Global Cities Center of Excellence.

“CPIP has done an outstanding job building the premier Advisory Board in the infrastructure field,” Beatty said. “We have business leaders and professional experts in finance, law, public policy, government, technology, construction management, security and academia who are available to students, faculty, and researchers to provide guidance on physical, social, and digital infrastructure. Board members display a commitment to advancing research, developing the next generation of infrastructure leaders, and assisting CPIP in its public outreach mission. This kind of support will ensure CPIP’s leadership role among academic institutions in infrastructure policy.”

Geddes and CPIP Executive Director Richard Coyle ’86 are confident that leadership role will broaden in the years ahead, including these 2023 initiatives:

• Research on a suitable policy framework to facilitate the reconstruction of Ukrainian infrastructure.

• Examination of how improved policy can accelerate infrastructure changes to achieve U.S. climate goals.

• Supporting economic development in New York state with research related to infrastructure needs created by new industrial investment such as the Micron Technology facility in Clay, New York.

“The United States is facing inflation, volatile capital markets, and constricted labor markets. Globally, there is an extended land war in Europe, flooding in developing countries, and ongoing supply-chain problems. Improved infrastructure policy stands squarely at the center of all those challenges,” Geddes said. “Cutting-edge research, dynamic teaching, and academic engagement with key infrastructure stakeholders is more important than ever. As the nation’s premier infrastructure policy center, CPIP is poised to have even greater real-world impact.”

As the nation’s premier infrastructure policy center, CPIP is poised to have even greater real-world impact.

Brooks School welcomes African leaders

The Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies have been selected as Institute Partners for the 2023 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders.

Beginning in mid-June, Cornell will host 25 of Africa’s most promising emerging public management leaders for a six-week Leadership Institute sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

The Mandela Washington Fellowship, the flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), empowers young African leaders through academic coursework, leadership training, mentoring, networking, professional opportunities, and local community engagement. Created in 2010, YALI supports young Africans as they spur economic growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance, and enhance peace and security across Africa.

Since 2014, the U.S. Department of State has supported nearly 5,800 Mandela Washington Fellows from across sub-Saharan Africa to develop their leadership skills and foster connections and collaboration with U.S. professionals. The cohort of fellows co-hosted by the Brooks School and Einaudi Center will be part of a group of 700 Mandela Washington Fellows based at 28 educational institutions across the United States.

“The Einaudi Center is thrilled to partner with the Brooks School to welcome the cohort of Young African Leaders, who will share with our Cornell community their innovative thinking and strategies for positive impact in their communities and countries,” said Einaudi Center director Rachel Beatty Riedl. She is Einaudi’s John S. Knight Professor of International Studies and a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Brooks School.

“This flagship mobility fellowship brings leading entrepreneurs and public servants from across Africa to Ithaca to participate in faculty-led courses in public management practices, projects in community engagement, and leadership development,” Riedl said. “The program highlights how much we can learn from and share with emerging global leaders around the world.”

At Cornell, fellows will engage in intensive leadership training that will hone their skills as public officials and managers in challenging, complex public and private sector environments.

Fellows will also participate in field treks that will demonstrate in practice concepts raised during the institute; complete community service projects, network with seasoned practitioners, and develop a capstone project linking their training to practice.

“The partnership between the Brooks School and the Einaudi Center is key,” said Tom O’Toole, executive director of Brooks School public affairs programming. “In the context of improving lives and doing the greatest good, this is a tremendous opportunity for us to share our resources, as well as learn from some of the top minds from Africa,” O’Toole said.

After their Leadership Institutes, fellows will participate in the Mandela Washington Fellowship Summit, where they will join networking and panel discussions with U.S. leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Following the summit, up to 100 competitively selected fellows will participate in four weeks of professional development with U.S. nongovernmental organizations, private companies, and government agencies.

Funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and implemented by IREX, Leadership Institutes offer programs that challenge, motivate, and empower young leaders from Africa to tackle the challenges of the 21st century.

EMHA ranked in top 10 health care management grad programs

The Executive Master of Health Administration (EMHA) is one of the top 10 executive health care management graduate programs in the nation, according to rankings published by Modern Healthcare Magazine.

Of 25 programs, the Cornell Brooks EMHA ranked No. 9 based on alumni survey data from the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). The commission calculated each institution’s Net Promoter Score, which measures the likelihood that graduates would positively recommend a program. CAHME published the average scores for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years and Cornell’s EMHA received a score demonstrating high satisfaction – 81 out of 100.

“Our graduates are our best champions,” said Sean Nicholson, professor and director of the Sloan Program in Health Administration. “This recognition reflects our faculty’s commitment to exemplary education and outstanding career support for our students.”

The EMHA is a part of the Sloan Program in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. Students complete the degree in 18 months online and immerse themselves in real-world projects and discussions with their classmates. They complete two inperson sessions on Cornell’s Ithaca campus and an innovation trek to Boston.

Open to students from around the world, the EMHA—the only CAHME-ranked program from an Ivy League institution— provides a flexible learning experience for health care professionals, including clinicians, pharmaceutical professionals, senior living executives, health policymakers, and others. EMHA applicants must have at least five years of experience, and each cohort average is 12-14 years. As they earn the degree, students immediately apply their new knowledge to challenges facing their organizations.

“Professionals in the EMHA program have years of industry experience, so these students are well-positioned to quickly discern whether our program truly meets their needs,” said Director of Executive Education Mariya Thompson. “We’re honored that this ranking shows their satisfaction. It also demonstrates the tremendous value they’ve received from our expert faculty and unique blend of virtual classes and in-person residential sessions.”

PARTICIPANTS IN THE 2018 MANDELA WASHINGTON FELLOWSHIP FOR YOUNG AFRICAN LEADERS PROGRAM GATHER FOR A RECEPTION AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.

Students propose solar solution to Puerto Rico’s electricity woes

Students in a hands-on Brooks School infrastructure class are urging government officials in Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. to promote rooftop solar power, and have developed a policy proposal that promotes the deployment of solar power in the most vulnerable communities.

Puerto Ricans have endured persistent and protracted power outages since Hurricane Maria devastated the Island in 2017. Hurricane Fiona was another reminder that the electricity problems continue. Students participating in the course concluded that rooftop solar must be a key part of the electricity infrastructure. The question is how.

“The proposal is the product of our annual graduate student infrastructure practicum where we present students with a real-world infrastructure challenge,” said John Foote ’74, lecturer and member of the Brooks School Dean's Advisory Council. “Puerto Rico is an ideal location to study infrastructure because of the critical needs it has in energy, transportation, water and communications. Our students truly want to help. This is one way they can make a difference now and, as rooftop solar is adopted, for years to come.”

Rooftop solar power involves installing a photovoltaic system on the roof of a home as a primary or supplemental source of electricity. There may be financial, regulatory or information roadblocks to its installation and maintenance.

The project began in the spring when 11 students in the graduate student infrastructure practicum met weekly to learn about renewable energy. They then spent spring break in Puerto Rico, meeting with public officials, nonprofits and residents. A key ally in the effort was Ingrid Vila-Biaggi ’96, an environmental engineer, co-founder and president of CAMBIO, a nonprofit organization based in Puerto Rico that designs, promotes and implements sustainable policies and practices.

Over the summer, the students developed a final report they are now sharing with CAMBIO, government and utility leaders.

The report defines the goals of the project:

• Lower electricity costs and a reduction in the energy burden for low and moderate income (LMI) households.

• Provide reliable electricity to LMI households.

• Provide financial support for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority as it builds out its transmission and distribution infrastructure.

• Help Puerto Rico achieve its intermediate and long-term goal of a heavy reliance on renewable energy.

The students reviewed funding sources and determined that grants were available under a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) program that could help as many as 379,000 households acquire rooftop solar equipment and storage systems. An existing network of neighborhood-based community development financial institutions would promote the program house-to-house, administer the FEMA funds and provide lowinterest loans to homeowners in case there’s a gap between the cost of a system and the amount of a FEMA award.

The next steps are up to an array of agencies and offices in Puerto Rico, but the Cornell students have given them a roadmap to a less vulnerable and more sustainable energy future. “Now with the current events surrounding Puerto Rico resulting from the most recent hurricane, I hope our collective work encourages and inspires both conversations and actions,” said master of regional planning student Sarah Carillo, one of participants in the project.

JOHN FOOTE AND THE BROOKS SCHOOL DELEGATION TRAVELED TO PUERTO RICO TO CONDUCT FIELD RESEARCH AND MEET WITH GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

MPA students find optimism at climate conference

From selfies with famous figures to in-depth discussions about renewable energy finance, three MPA Program students participated in the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Egypt, known as COP27.

MPA students Nick Hamp-Adams and Courtney Schneider attended COP27 as part of the Global Climate Change Science and Policy class and were part of a Cornell delegation coordinated by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, where they contributed ideas to a conference that included diplomats from nearly 200 nations.

Johanna Nyman, an Executive Master of Public Administration (EMPA) student, also participated in the conference. She led the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) delegation. AFI is a network of 83 central banks and financial regulators and Nyman leads AFI's Inclusive Green Finance workstream.

“What an incredible week at COP27,” Schneider said. “Through countless hours of listening and conversation, I met a diverse and incredible array of people from around the globe, all of whom are passionate about making a difference.”

Attending the first week of the conference, Hamp-Adams brought an international perspective to the proceedings. He is South African and interested in climate change adaptation, sustainable development and natural resource governance. Hamp-Adams has interned with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in its Adaptation Division and is a graduate teaching assistant in the Global Climate Change Science and Policy course.

As part of the delegation, Hamp-Adams offered daily updates on his activities, including meeting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. “I told him I was a master’s student at Cornell University and that South Africa needs to be a world climate leader.”

Hamp-Adams also moderated a press briefing featuring Cornell’s student delegates, reminding the attendees that “Science and research can inform decisions to assist communities and economies in rectifying damage caused by climate change.” He then reflected on the experience: “Presenting at the press conference on student engagement at COP27 was definitely

a highlight of the day. I also attended an informative finance discussion at the UN Climate Change Pavilion hosted by the Citi Group. It was interesting to hear the insights and concerns.”

Schneider, who is also studying environmental policy, attended the second week of the conference. Last year, she was part of a group consulting project where she developed a report for the Peruvian government on the risks of microplastic pollution in their country, the ocean, and around the world. This fall, she conducted further group research on climate change and the ocean, analyzing the key topics for the first-ever Ocean Dialogue at COP27.

“Today was absolutely incredible from start to finish,” Schneider wrote in one update. “My first event of the day was a State Department briefing with U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry, where he gave an update on the state of the nation’s commitments and answered audience questions. I snagged a photo with him at the end.”

Nyman, representing AFI, moderated a discussion on central banks and their role in green finance developments and organized a side event with central bank representatives on how financial inclusion can advance climate resilience and enable mitigation amongst households and micro, small and medium enterprises. She discussed her experiences at COP27 in The Sound of Economics, a podcast produced by Bruegel, a European economic think tank: “It filled me with hope to be at COP in the last weeks, to see all the different actors come together, actors that only five years ago would not have been involved in a meeting like this. Actors like commercial banks and central banks. We’re definitely not doing enough but I really feel there is hope because we’re mobilizing across all fronts at the moment.”

COP27 ended with a successful negotiation between the diplomats that resulted in the decision to establish a “loss and damage” fund to compensate vulnerable countries for damages caused by climate change.

It was a success, as well, for Nyman, Hamp-Adams and Schneider. “I’ve returned to the states with renewed optimism for the future and a clear vision of how I, together with individuals, particularly youth around the world, can tackle the climate crisis,” Schneider said. “The solutions may not be easy, but they do exist.”

NICK HAMP-ADAMS '22 (R) MEETS SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT CYRIL RAMAPHOSA. COURTNEY SCHNEIDER '23 (R) TOOK A SELFIE WITH U.S. SECRETARY OF ENERGY JENNIFER GRANHOLM

Graduates of executive programs celebrated as “thinkers, leaders and change agents”

The Brooks School held an historic December graduation ceremony, awarding degrees to the first class of Executive Master of Public Administration (EMPA) students as well as the third class of Executive Master of Health Administration (EMHA) students.

Both programs are intended for midcareer professionals and developed in partnership with eCornell. They feature blended learning over 18 months, with most courses taught online along with brief visits to the Ithaca campus and other locations.

“We have trained you to be thinkers and leaders and change agents,” said Dean Colleen Barry after she warmly congratulated the graduates. “We expect that you will work to improve people’s lives, to reduce suffering in the world and to make the world a more equitable, more prosperous, and healthier place. And, in doing so, you will have lived up to the investment made in you by your faculty here at Cornell and by your family and friends at home and here in this room who have supported you.”

Students representing each graduating class eloquently expressed their gratitude for that support, whether by faculty and staff or by family members and co-workers. They also thanked their classmates.

“We have connected as teammates, friends, confidantes, and champions,” said Jennifer Tolkoff, speaking on behalf of the EMHA graduates. “A unique aspect of learning predominantly via Zoom is the context in which you get to know your cohort. We got to see each other’s kids and family members and pets sneak onto camera. When people would forget to mute, we heard them navigate their work, talk to their partners about dinner, negotiate with their kids to remain quiet. Many may think that learning via Zoom is a barrier to getting to know your classmates.

I believe it helped us get to know one another and who we are outside of school even better.”

Each graduate’s story is unique. They are of a variety of ages, come from around the world and many have wellestablished careers. Mary Papamarkou, for example, has held leadership positions in financial services for 25 years and is a member of the Rutgers University Board of Trustees.

“This program is everything I had hoped for and more,” she said, speaking on behalf of the EMPA graduates. “It has given me the tools to be a better board member and a better global citizen. I have been challenged and my brain has been stretched. I like school so much more now than when I was an undergrad. I’ve made friends that I hope will last a lifetime.”

The graduates leave Cornell with more than memories. Academic leaders of each program underscored the responsibilities that come with the degrees.

“We need you more than ever,” said Matthew Hall, MPA Program Director and a professor of sociology and public policy in the Brooks School and the Department of Sociology. “Disruptive times require disruptive thinkers. And I know as you embark on the next stages of your careers, we can count on you to make those positive disruptions in ways that will make the world healthier, better, and stronger.”

That sentiment was echoed by health care economist and Sloan Program director Sean Nicholson: “Health care clearly needs competent and visionary leaders who have the tools to achieve their vision and the compassion to make a difference at the level of a patient and the consumer.”

The ceremony was held in the Memorial Room at Willard Straight Hall and livestreamed and recorded

by CornellCast for those who couldn’t attend in person. It was highlighted by the awarding of degrees to 39 EMHA graduates and 19 EMPA graduates.

The ceremony also featured the presentation of the EMHA Student Service Awards to Tolkoff and Joydeep Ganguly and the EMPA Student Service Award to Ashlie Bryant. She is the cofounder of 3Strands Global Foundation, an internationally focused non-profit that supports survivors of trafficking.

Executive Director of MPA Programs

Thomas O’Toole said Bryant and her classmates have demonstrated the perseverance shown by Pearl S. Buck, Barbara McClintock, and Toni Morrison, all Nobel Prize winners and Cornellians.

“I challenge you all as graduates to work tirelessly in service to the tradition of grit that these great Cornell alumni left behind as ambassadors of the Cornell commitment to doing the greatest good,” O’Toole said.

While Buck and Morrison were famed novelists, Director of Executive Education Mariya Thompson referenced another storyteller in her charge to the graduates: “I can’t think of a more appropriate quote than this one from Dr. Seuss about how you’ve risen to the challenge of the upside-down, topsyturvy last two years. ‘You’re off to great places, today is your day. Your mountain is waiting so get on your way.’”

We have connected as teammates, friends, confidantes, and champions.

W. Keith Bryant, expert on family behavior, dies at 87

Economist W. Keith Bryant, Cornell professor emeritus, co-author of an influential text on household economics and key figure in the establishment of a department that would grow to be a cornerstone of the Brooks School, died Sept. 13. He was 87.

“Keith was a pioneer in the study of how families make decisions on spending their time and resources and much of our understanding of consumer behavior stems from his research,” said longtime colleague Alan Mathios, professor in the Brooks School and former dean of the College of Human Ecology. “He was a delightful guy with a broad range of interests and a deep devotion to his family, to his students and to the Ithaca community.”

Bryant served as president of the American Council on Consumer Interests, a Distinguished Fellow of the council, and as a staff member of President Lyndon Johnson’s National Advisory Committee on Rural Poverty. He published in many major journals and, with Cathleen Zick, authored a widely used textbook, “Economic Organization of the Household.”

In a community message to faculty, staff and students, Brooks School Dean Colleen Barry and Rachel Dunifon, the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of CHE, described Bryant as an accomplished scholar and an effective advocate for the creation of the Department of Policy Analysis and Management (PAM) in 1997, a critical step in the evolution toward the creation of the Brooks School in 2021.

“We are grateful to Professor Bryant for his selfless service to Cornell, and we join his many friends and former students in extending our sympathies to his family,” they wrote.

W. Keith Bryant was born in 1934 in Guelph, Ontario. He received a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the Ontario

Agricultural College in 1957. During college, he joined the Universities Naval Training Division (of the Royal Canadian Navy) and was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant upon graduation. He was also awarded the Baker Dirk, for an outstanding naval cadet.

He received his master’s (1960) and doctorate (1963) degrees from Michigan State University. In 1963, he joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota as an assistant professor in the departments of Agricultural Economics and Statistics. From 1966-67, he served as a staff economist on Johnson’s rural poverty commission, where he led the research on rural and regional development.

“As a result of my experience on the commission staff and my continued research, I became increasingly doubtful that solutions to rural poverty could be found in rural and regional industrial development,” Bryant wrote in an article about his life. “I increasingly turned to researching solutions within the family.”

In 1974, Bryant joined CHE’s Department of Consumer Economics and Public Policy. He served as chair of the Department of Consumer Economics and Housing from 1989 until 1997, when it merged with the Department of Human Service Studies to form PAM. He also served as the first chair of that department.

Bryant is survived by his wife of 60 years, Marty; two children, Frances Elizabeth Bryant-Scott of Crete, Greece, and Michael Jonathan Bryant of Santa Clarita, California; and four grandchildren.

How security crises can spur state-building in Latin America

▲ Continued from page 6

Q: How do your findings provide a blueprint for developing states in Latin America and elsewhere?

A: Even in relatively weak states governments can generate the right conditions to increase tax revenue substantially while shielding the poor. The book also shows that this revenue can make a meaningful difference toward strengthening the institutions in charge of providing public safety. A major lesson for governments is that explicitly connecting taxation with public safety can be an important strategy to strengthen the state in both senses. However, governments’ ability to adopt taxes on economic elites will be severely diminished if elites’ concerns are not taken seriously, even in the context of major public safety crises. Consultation mechanisms and taxes properly designed to ameliorate these concerns will be more likely to succeed.

How much money is too much for obesity treatments?

▲ Continued from page 8

Although the prevalence of obesity is now 41.9% among U.S. adults, relatively few people receive these treatments. There are roughly a quarter-million bariatric surgeries in the U.S. each year, and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that only 660,000 of the 71.6 million people eligible to take an anti-obesity drug did so. The same GAO study found that, even among adults trying to lose weight, only 3% took a prescription drug for weight loss. There are several potential reasons for this low take-up. Bariatric surgery is invasive and has nontrivial side effects. Weight loss drugs are often not covered by insurance, which makes the new drugs very expensive for the consumer. And of course, patients may prefer to modify their behaviors (with diet or exercise) rather than undergo surgery or take a prescription drug.

Q: Why isn’t there greater health insurance coverage of weight loss surgery, drugs and programs?

A: Private health insurance companies look at the business case for covering obesity treatments, and one issue is enrollee turnover; insurers don’t want to pay for an obesity treatment just

Local floodplain home buyouts can inform federal plans

▲ Continued from page 7

The biggest takeaway is that communities need dedicated, longstanding programs to make the buyout process more equitable and responsive, Shi said. “Communities that start afresh after a disaster don’t have the time or capacity to be as thoughtful and inclusive,” she said. “FEMA can help communities not just by giving more money for implementation, but also building institutions at state and regional levels.”

In addition to lead author Shi and Brenner, authors include Anjali Fisher, MRP ’21, King County, Seattle; Amelia Greiner Safi, associate professor of social and behavioral sciences, and public health practice in the Department of Public and Ecosystem Health, College of Veterinary Medicine; Jamie Vanucchi, associate professor, Department of Landscape Architecture (CALS); and Christine Shepard of The Nature Conservancy.

The following Cornell students contributed to research: MPA students Paul Corsi ’22, Pedro Fernandez ’23, Austin Reid ’22, John Tanis ’21 and Xinyue Wang ’22; master’s in landscape architecture student Katherine Ackerman ’21; and master’s in regional planning students Alec Faber ’22, Austin Ford ’22, Audrey Wachs ’23, and Hannah Wilson ’21.

This work was supported by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, where Brenner, Shi, and Vanucchi are faculty fellows.

to have the patient leave their plan and then another insurance company reaps the resulting cost savings. Bias may also play a role; society may view obesity as a choice and a condition less worthy of coverage.

Q: Is there a way to measure whether obesity treatments are cost effective, not so much for the individual but for the nation as a whole?

A: Absolutely. Studies calculate the societal benefits and costs associated with specific treatments, and a treatment is considered cost-effective if its cost per quality-adjusted life year saved (the standardized unit of how well medical treatments lengthen and/or improve patients’ lives) is below some critical threshold (historically, $50,000). The most common bariatric surgery has been found to be cost-effective, as have some but not all weight-loss drugs. Cost-effective treatments of obesity exist; the challenge is that health insurance coverage of them is spotty, and only a small percentage of eligible people are receiving them.

Photo finish

Professor Sean Nicholson’s dogs at student event

Sloan Master of Health Administration students at orientation yoga

Carol Fields Hagen receives Staff Appreciation Award

MPA students at orientation

Reginald Davis, Executive MHA ’20

Sloan MHA student Hackathon winners

Executive Master of Public Administration students

Brooks School First Anniversary Party

MPA student Kaitlyn Boardman meets President Biden

Professor Nicholas Sanders greets first-year students

Sloan MHA students at orientation

Undergraduate Student Ambassadors

Cornell in Washington spring semester students

Brooks School First Anniversary Party