Michigan Medicine joins county to vaccinate school workers
Michigan Medicine is working with the Washtenaw County Health Department to help vaccinate local school employees against COVID-19. A clinic last weekend at Michigan Stadium — along with others at IHA locations — was part of an effort that aimed to vaccinate approximately 1,200 elementary school educators. The health department was providing the vaccine out of its allocations from the state, and worked directly with local schools and districts to connect their staff to the appropriate partner for registration. The clinic is part of the health department’s effort to vaccinate as many school employees as quickly as vaccine supplies allow. “We are committed to supporting the county in its efforts to vaccinate critical workers,” said Marschall Runge, chief executive officer of Michigan Medicine, dean of the Medical School and executive vice president for medical affairs. For updated vaccine information from Michigan Medicine, please visit uofmhealth.org/coronavirus/vaccine-info-update.
U-M Library offers repository for researchers’ data
Researchers at U-M have a new option for sharing and preserving qualitative and mixed-methods research data — the Qualitative Data Repository. The QDR archive can be used to store, share and discover a wide range of digital data and accompanying documentation generated or collected through qualitative and mixed-method research in the social sciences. “By sharing your data, you’ll get more citations to your work and greater recognition of your work. And many grants, especially federal grants, now require that data be shared,” said Karen Downing, education librarian at U-M Library. “The really great thing about QDR is that it has staff that are dedicated to helping you prepare your data to be deposited.” QDR is available via the U-M Library’s licensed institutional membership. Researchers ready to deposit qualitative data should visit QDR at qdr.syr.edu, or contact Downing at kdown@umich.edu.
UMSI staff volunteer project contributes to new campus resource
Faculty and other members of the university community who schedule events, major talks or other campus activities have a new web resource to help with their planning, thanks to a project undertaken by School of Information staff. The Office of the Provost provides a list of major holidays, cultural events and religious holidays on its website. While not intended as a comprehensive list of all holidays, its goal is to help avoid conflicts with the academic calendar. Many of these holidays are now hyperlinked to an online collection of information sheets compiled at the School of Information with input from religious leaders and community organizations. While U-M, as a public institution, does not observe religious holidays, the school does ask those who schedule events to take reasonable and appropriate steps to support members of the community who choose to engage in religious observances. Send feedback on the information provided to DEIHolidayFacts@umich.edu.
Segregation, income disparity fueled high COVID-19 numbers
The growth rate of COVID‐19 cases and deaths was higher for U.S. metropolitan areas that exhibited greater Black and white or Hispanic and white segregation, a new U-M study shows. Some minority groups have contracted the virus disproportionately more during the pandemic, and both residential segregation and the absence of wealth contributed to the spread, according to the study. The growth curves for cases and deaths were steeper in counties in metropolitan areas where Black and Hispanic populations are residentially segregated from whites. This segregation effect was augmented by income inequality within each county, said Qinggang Yu, the study’s lead author and a psychology doctoral student. This was evident in several locations, including the Detroit area, which included Warren and Livonia. Read the full study.
Veterans Legal Clinic spurs change to Michigan food stamp rules
The Veterans Legal Clinic at the Law School recently finalized a case that involved a 62-year-old disabled and previously homeless veteran who was barred from receiving food assistance, resulting in a rule change by the state of Michigan that will expand access to food stamps. In 2015, Bill Bennett applied for and was granted access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a federal food stamp program, but did not disclose that he had felony drug convictions on his record. When his previous felonies were discovered, Bennett was sued by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which claimed that he had intentionally violated the rule. The Veterans Legal Clinic succeeded in getting the intentional program violation allegations dismissed and, in partnership with the Michigan Poverty Law Program, filed a lawsuit against the state to challenge its determination of overpayment against Bennett. Rather than fight the lawsuit, the state wrote the policy out of the budget for fiscal year 2020–21, which effectively eliminated the rule restricting people with felony drug convictions from receiving food assistance. For more about their efforts.
— Compiled by James Iseler and Jeff Bleiler, The University Record
