New working paper from Ritikaa Khanna, @rourkeobrien.bsky.social, @astokespop.bsky.social, @atheendar.bsky.social, & me We apply a new lens to the great (non-Covid) debate of US mortality studies: What's up w the 2010s? It emphasizes that US longevity worsened against a background of increasing $$

The U.S. Mortality Crisis as a Preston Curve Reversal

Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

nber.org

Totally agree. This is why we @oppforhealthlab.bsky.social tried to measure one of the sentiments that just kept bubbling up. Feeling "stuck": opportunityforhealth.org/project/stuc...

Stuckness in America – Opportunity for Health

opportunityforhealth.org

Pam Herd@pamherd.bsky.social · 3mo ago

As someone who collects data for a living, I'm very worried we're missing or ignoring key indicators that are shaping peoples' experiences. Loss of health insurance, food assistance, cost increases, etc. I don't think "people are wrong" is a rational interpretation at this point

Check out the incredible video that @nerd4cities.bsky.social made on #TaxBaseFragmentation! www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF2g...

Why Tax Base Fragmentation Is a Serious Problem

YouTube video by Ray Delahanty | CityNerd

youtube.com

1/ Today we @oppforhealthlab.bsky.social are releasing our report: "Stuckness in America." #Stuckness is a #feeling + material #reality that reinforce one another in a self-perpetuating #trap. 1 our of every 5 Americans are #stuck. opportunityforhealth.org/project/stuc...

Stuckness in America – Opportunity for Health

opportunityforhealth.org

The 1850–1910 high school boom explains about one-third of rising female labor force participation. But gains bypassed Black children and favored richer families, widening racial and class gaps, from Alison Doxey, Ezra Karger, and Peter Nencka www.nber.org/papers/w35068

🚨 Check out our brand new #website 🚨 Redesigned with fresh, easy to access summaries of our work! Interested in our missing of "advancing $health by expanding #opportunity and #hope"? Read on! opportunityforhealth.org

Can economic #opportunity help flatten the #income-#health gradient in the United States? Check out our new @medrxivpreprint.bsky.social by Anant Mishra, @rourkeobrien.bsky.social, and Atheen Venkataramani! Paper here: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6... Key figure:

Teaser: The % of working age Americans from our survey who strongly agree with the statement: "I currently feel stuck in life."

Atheendar Venkataramani@atheendar.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Our team @oppforhealthlab.bsky.social is working on a related point. There might be a deeper sentiment here than just perceiving being material worse off. We are calling it "stuckness." Report on Stuckness in America to come soon.

PARC AGING CHAT TODAY AT NOON! Monday, April 6th, from 12-1 pm “The Growing Issue of Homelessness/Housing Insecurity and Aging” with Rebecca T. Brown & Dennis P. Culhane HYBRID EVENT PSC Commons, McNeil 403 & Zoom (see image for login information)

🚨 Check out our brand new #website 🚨 Redesigned with fresh, easy to access summaries of our work! Interested in our missing of "advancing $health by expanding #opportunity and #hope"? Read on! opportunityforhealth.org

🚨@oppforhealthlab.bsky.social has a new website!!🚨 Fully redesigned, and full of helpful summaries of our work and associated resources. Our mission: "Advancing health by expanding opportunity and hope." Find out how: opportunityforhealth.org

In 1937, sulfa drugs--some of the first antibiotics--were introduced. This lowered childhood pneumonia rates. As a direct result, kids with access to these antibiotics... 1 stayed in school longer, 2 had higher incomes, & 3 worked more/had fewer work limiting disabilities. Antibiotics FTW!

🚨🚨 It's new research week for me on the socials! 🚨🚨 First up, just released today as an NBER working paper: "More Hours, More Work: Head Start Expansions Boost Maternal Employment" with fantastic coauthors Esra Kose and Maria Rosales-Rueda www.nber.org/papers/w34831

Congratulations to Charles Manski on winning the BBVA Frontiers Award for his foundational contributions to partial identification, semiparametric methods, subjective expectations, social interactions and policy decision-making under uncertainty www.premiosfronterasdelconocimiento.es/noticias/xvi...

XVIII Premio Fronteras del Conocimiento en Economía a Charles Manski

por incorporar la incertidumbre en la investigación económica y su aplicación al análisis de las políticas públicas

premiosfronterasdelconocimiento.es

@atheendar.bsky.social was recently quoted in the @nytimes.com on infant mortality rates - a critical public health issue that had been improving for decades but recently stalled. Check out what he says this could be attributed to: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/h...

Infant Mortality Fell for Decades. Why Did That Stop?

nytimes.com

Public preschools facilitate early diagnoses and treatment of behavioral and developmental conditions that can hinder learning, from Maya Rossin-Slater, Adrienne Sabety, and Aileen Wu www.nber.org/papers/w34677

Happy New Year from all of us at Opportunity for Health! There's a lot coming from us in 2026, including: -Redesigned website with research summaries -Findings from the first ever Stuckness in America Survey -Results from the IGNITE Study of Concentrated Investment in Low-Income Neighborhoods

The first antibiotics reduced childhood pneumonia, boosting adult human capital and income. However, discriminatory institutions curtailed long-run gains from a healthy start, from Sonia R. Bhalotra, Damian Clarke, and Atheendar Venkataramani www.nber.org/papers/w34606

The 1975 Voting Rights Act extension lowered mortality for most nonwhite groups but raised it for white adults and older nonwhite men, patterns consistent with status threat, from Atheendar Venkataramani, Rourke O'Brien, Elizabeth F. Bair, and Christopher A. Lowenstein www.nber.org/papers/w34421

Political institutions determine who governs -- and who lives. We find that enfranchising marginalized groups improved their health. We also find that redistribution of power led to relative increases in mortality for non-targeted groups--despite material circumstances improving for all groups.

Atheendar Venkataramani@atheendar.bsky.social · 9mo ago

1/ New paper w/ @rourkeobrien.bsky.social, @clowenstein.bsky.social, and Elizabeth Bair showing how the Voting Rights Act had starkly different effects on #mortality by race and age -- and the potential importance of #status #threat in explaining these findings. www.nber.org/papers/w34421

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1/ New paper w/ @rourkeobrien.bsky.social, @clowenstein.bsky.social, and Elizabeth Bair showing how the Voting Rights Act had starkly different effects on #mortality by race and age -- and the potential importance of #status #threat in explaining these findings. www.nber.org/papers/w34421

Surveying the evidence on intergenerational mobility studies that use alternative measures with a focus on health, consumption and life satisfaction, from Jonathan Davis, Nathan Deutscher, and @bhashmazumder.bsky.social www.nber.org/papers/w34407

Check out this special RESEARCH edition of the PENN POPULATION STUDIES NEWSLETTER featuring new pubs by 30+ @pennaging.bsky.social & @pennpsc.bsky.social researchers, including @oppforhealthlab.bsky.social, @pfomby.bsky.social, & @drdmgriffith.bsky.social READ IT HERE: bit.ly/3Wg0QeL

It was exciting to see OfH Lab members sharing their work at this week’s CHIBE Retreat! @pennchibe.bsky.social Our PM Hilu presented qualitative findings from the IGNITE study, and pre-doc Ritikaa presented on “Understanding the recent decline in US life expectancy” during the poster session. 👏🏼

Can economic opportunity lower mortality? Exploiting the fracking boom: job growth lowered medically treatable deaths (e.g. cardiovascular), likely via increased insurance coverage, but had no effect on external causes such as Deaths of Despair. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

1/ Opportunity for Health (@oppforhealthlab.bsky.social) is 5 years old today! I can't think of a better way to kick off our anniversary than embarking on this multi-year study on #job #reskilling and #health with a fantastic Philly based partner, The Skills Initiative.

Opportunity for Health@oppforhealthlab.bsky.social · 12mo ago

The Opportunity for Health Lab is thrilled to be partnering with The Skills Initiative on WORKS - a new study exploring the powerful connection between economic opportunity and health. #OpportunityForHealth #SkillsInitiative #ResearchCollaboration

The Opportunity for Health Lab is thrilled to be partnering with The Skills Initiative on WORKS - a new study exploring the powerful connection between economic opportunity and health. #OpportunityForHealth #SkillsInitiative #ResearchCollaboration

In @nejm.org, Atheendar Venkataramani (@pennmehp.bsky.social) & co discuss how public policies, by way of the social narratives they reinforce, can affect health by mechanisms that are independent of any effects on resources & opportunities @oppforhealthlab.bsky.social www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/...