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New Website Launches, Giving Public Access to Measures of Child Wellbeing & Equity in the U.S. COLUMBUS, OH– With the help of The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity, The Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy (ICYPF) at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management has launched today a new online data and analysis tool—diversitydatakids.org—providing unprecedented insight into wellbeing and equity among the ever more diverse child population in the United State

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Download the Kirwan Issue Brief: Infant Mortality in Ohio (PDF) Infant mortality is the rate at which babies die within their first year of life. Infant mortality is a measure that can be used to gauge the trends in women and child health, the quality and availability of medical care, public health practices, and the economy overall.  

Startling data from the Kirwan Institute’s recent report illustrates the grave reality of infant mortality rates in the state of Ohio. Just four years ago, “Ohio had the 4th highest infant mortality rate in the nation” and there is striking evidence of health disparities in these rates, as “black infants are twice are likely to die in Ohio during their first year of life compared to white infants.”

The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity’s first feature film A Reading of the Letter from Birmingham Jail, can now be viewed anywhere, through the launch of the Institute’s new online multimedia channel.

Alarming disparities in the application of school discipline policies exist nationwide between African American, Latino and White students. A “2009-2010 survey of 72,000 schools (K-12) shows that while Black students make up only 18 percent of those enrolled in the schools sampled, they accounted for 35 percent of those suspended once, 46 percent of those suspended more than once, and 39 percent of all expulsions.” City-specific data from metropolitan regions across the nation demonstrate similar disturbing trends.

Download the Kirwan Institute Issue Brief:Racial Disproportionality in School Discipline: Implicit Bias is Heavily Implicated (PDF)

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Download Development of the Kirwan Institute’s Health Equity Program

Development of the Kirwan Institute’s Health Equity Program

Health disparities are defined as the differences in health outcomes and their determinants between different segments of the population which are defined by social, demographic, environmental, and geo- graphic attributes. Health inequalities, a term that is sometimes used interchangeably with health disparities, refers to a summary measure of population health associated with individual or group specific at- tributes such as income education or race/ethnicity.

My husband and I attended the premier of the Kirwan Institute’s motion picture, “A Reading of the Letter from Birmingham Jail.” We both thoroughly enjoyed the video and want to commend your team for a job well done.  As former history major, I have read the letter a number of times, in addition to other speeches and writings by Dr. King.  I particularly enjoy the works closer to his death, as he became more “radical,” but still advocating for peace.  

The Fair Housing Equity Assessment (FHEA) represents a new opportunity for regional and local agencies to be more strategic with their resources to advance goals of investing in high-poverty communities while ensuring that more low-income people and families have expanded mobility to neighborhoods of high opportunity. Achieving these goals at a regional scale will take strategic investment to leverage all resources available for the task.

Download   Place Matters: Using Mapping to Plan for Opportunity, Equity, and Sustainability

There is an education crisis in our country that is reaching a dangerous peak. Growing poverty, attacks on the integrity of public education, calls for public funding of privately owned charters, a gridlocked federal government, and entrenched racial disparities guarantee that the Next Big Neglect will be in education. To understand the crisis we’re facing, look at the racial disparities in educational outcomes:

  Discussion of the George Zimmerman verdict has been rampant in both the public and private spheres since jurors rendered the divisive decision in mid-July.  Zimmerman’s acquittal of all charges in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin has sparked conversations on a plethora of sensitive topics, including Stand Your Ground laws, the current status of race relations in the United States, and what it means to live at the precarious identity intersection of being Black and male in a society that asserts itself to be “post-racial” despite ample evidence to the contrary.

By Tom Rudd,

The President has called today for thoughtful collective action in the wake of the tragic death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of the man who took his life. The Kirwan Institute looks forward to working with our partners across the nation to examine the impacts of “Stand Your Ground” laws, and to build a movement that will give African American boys the reassurance they need to feel valued, cared for and supported as full members of our society.

By Sharon Davies, Executive Director, published in the Columbus Dispatch,