This work is the product of many years of collaborations. Jody Heymann began developing databases to compare social policy around the world while at Harvard University. Together with Alison Earle and the support of the Ford Foundation, she worked with Stephanie Breslow, Aron Fischer, Francisco Flores, Lola Kassim, April Kuehnhoff, Stephanie Simmons and others to develop a data center to examine maternity leave, paternity leave, parental leave, leave to care for children’s and adults family member’s health, night work, sick leave, annual leave and a series of other laws and policies that matter to working adults and their families of all generations.
While serving as Founding Director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill, Jody was fortunate to have opportunities to broaden this work. A grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, funding received as a Canada Research Chair, and Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant funding received on multiple projects both as a co-applicant and principal applicant made it possible to develop comparative policy data in the areas of: constitutional rights, non-discrimination and equity, poverty policy, education policy, child labor and child marriage, environmental policy and others.
This would not have been possible without the extraordinary work of an international multilingual team that has spanned borders and institutions and included Megan Arthur, Efe Atabay, David Baumann, Samantha Berger, Ebony Bertorelli, Aneel Brar, Kip Brown, Adèle Cassola, Chelsea Clogg, Stephanie Coen, Chris Connolly, Mark Daku, Nicolás de Guzmán Chorny, Giulia El-Dardiry, Danielle Foley, Amanda Grittner, Jeff Hayes, Gabriella Kranz, Brittany Lambert, Isabel Latz, Adam Mahon, José Mauricio Mendoza, María Claudia Orjuela Laverde, Amy Raub, Erin Rogers, Anna Shea, Ceyda Turan, Ilona Vincent, Elise Vaughan Winfrey, and many policy interns. Collaborations with Ron Labonte, Ted Schrecker and other colleagues on a CIHR grant on globalization launched the poverty policy work. Collaborations with Lea Berrang Ford, James Ford, Alexandra Lesnikowski, Jaclyn Paterson, Jim Henderson, Peter Berry, and Magda Barrera launched the environmental policy work.
At UCLA, the focus of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center is making the data widely available to researchers, policy makers and civil society, and developing the training and tools necessary to advance both research into the impact of policy decisions and effective translation of research findings into policies and programs. The UCLA WORLD Policy Analysis Center is collaborating with leading global NGOs and IGOs in these efforts. It is also part of a unique global academic effort, MACHEquity: Estimating the effects of social policy on Millennium Development health outcomes.
MACHEquity, launched by Jody Heymann and now directed by Arijit Nandi, examines the impact of policies aimed at reducing poverty, income and gender inequality on the burden of disease among children and women, both highlighting effective national policies and understanding regional variation. Partnering with international NGOs and dedicated to training and mentoring the next generation of researchers in the field, the project focuses on innovative methodological approaches that incorporate household level data with global policy data to find associations between policy changes and health outcomes. Based at the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill, collaborating institutions and organizations include Bristol University, United Kingdom; Human Sciences Research Council, Durban, South Africa; Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India; Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru; University of California, Los Angeles, United States; Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy; Save the Children; CARE Canada; and the World Federation of Public Health Associations.
At each university – Harvard, McGill, and UCLA – the support and vision of faculty and university leadership at many important stages has been indispensable. While the UCLA WORLD Policy Analysis Center is responsible for the content and further development of the data center, we are deeply grateful for the support received at every stage which made this possible.
