Visit of John Whitlow to the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center

On the 21st and 22nd March, John Whitlow, Associate Professor at the CUNY School of Law, visited the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center. His visit included meetings with various members of the Center, as well as with prominent individuals who are working in Housing in Barcelona.

During the visit, Professor Whitlow taught a seminar entitled "New York City's Crisis of Affordable Housing Context." Ten students from the Master's programme in Social and Public Policy attended, along with members of the Center. The seminar addressed the main elements that have caused New York's affordable housing crisis, highlighting both its historical evolution and its economic, social and political implications for the city. Finally, the opportunities of the current context were discussed and attendants had the chance to compare the situations of New York City and Barcelona.

Who is John Whitlow? Find out more here.

Visit of Master's students to Barcelona Activa

On Tuesday March 19th, students from the Master’s degree in Public and Social Policy visited the facilities of Barcelona Activa, the economic and local development agency of the Barcelona City Council, located at the Knowledge District (Districte del Coneixement) known as 22@. This visit was part of the course entitled “Active Labour Market Policies”, taught by Professor Maravillas Rojo.

During the visit, students learned about the main instruments the Agency has for boosting the local economy. The visit involved the participation of Montse Besora, Director of Entrepreneurship; Emilia Pallàs, Executive Director of Local Socioeconomic Development; and Lorena Ventura, Director of Transversal Programs.

International Women’s Day Seminars - Feminism and Public Policy

To celebrate International Women’s Day on 8th March 2019, the Center hosted a series of seminars on Feminism and Public Policy, based in the Ciutadella Campus of the Pompeu Fabra University. The seminars were very well received, with more than forty students from different programs across the university attending. The events approached feminist theories in relation to public policies, and allowed the students to discuss and contrast positions on these topics.

Seminars:
Feminist Economy: from theory to strike
By Marina Sánchez Cid (Asociación CooperAcció)

Strategies for preventing gender violence in adolescents. Project Love & Respect
By María Montesinos (Fundación INDERA)

Theater-forum: Intersectional Feminism?
By Catàrsia (Colectivo de asiaticodescendientes)

APPAM International Conference 2019

The JHU-UPF Public Policy Center is excited to be co-hosting the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM) 2019 International Conference. The conference will be held at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona on the 29th and 30th July 2019, bringing experts in Public Policy from across the globe to discuss the most pressing policy issues currently being faced by populations.

The theme of this year’s APPAM International Conference is: “Public Policy Under Rapid Global Changes”. The two days will include sessions on the following policy areas: Crime, Violence and Justice; Demographic Developments, Migration, Immigration, and Refugees; Education;  Emergent New Technologies and Innovation; Employment and Work; Family, Child, and Aging Adult Policies; Health Policy; Housing; Politics, Media, and Comparative Policy Analysis; Race, Gender, Class, Age, and Intersectionality; Relationship Between Public and Private Financial Institutions; Scientific Research, Complex Systems, and Tools of Analysis; Social Policy and the Quality of Life and Wellbeing of Populations; and The Ecological Crisis, Climate Change, and the Environment.

The Chair of the International Conference is Dr. Keshia Pollack Porter (Co-Director of the Public Policy Center), and the Co-Chair of the conference is Dr. Vicente Navarro (Director of the Public Policy Center). Dr. Joan Benach (Co-Director of the Public Policy Center) and Dr. Javier Arregui (Executive Board member of the Public Policy Center) are also member of the Conference Planning Committee. Faculty and other members of the Public Policy Center are also actively involved in the planning of the event. We are delighted to have representatives from Barcelona’s Public Policy and academic community taking part in this conference, such as individuals from the Barcelona Public Health Agency (ASPB); Local City Council; and the Catalan Institute of Public Policy Evaluation, amongst others.

There is more information on this conference on the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center website.

Hopkins Fall Institute 2019

Preparations are well underway for the Hopkins Fall Institute 2019, which will be the 16th annual Fall Institute. The 2019 Fall Institute will run from November 4th-November 29th, 2019, offering a variety of graduate-level courses in health policy and management.

Each year, the Fall Institute attracts health professionals and graduate students from all over the world, enabling them to access courses delivered by experts at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Students are invited to gain a solid knowledge of policies and management approaches within the field of public health, along with new explorations and innovations in the field. The 2018 Fall Institute was a great success, with 224 students from 41 countries participating.

Courses

The Master’s degree in Public and Social Policy continues to provide students with top-quality teaching, with courses led by experts from both the Pompeu Fabra University and the Johns Hopkins University.

The Masters courses that were being delivered during March were:

• Social Security in Europe and Latin America
• Active Employment Policy

Both of these courses fall in the itinerary: Labor Market and Social Security.

"Climate & Health News" Newsletter

Every month, we send out a newsletter on scientific research and news developments in Climate & Health. See the March newsletter here.

We are pleased to announce recent publications from our researchers:

González-Hidalgo, M. and Zografos, C., 2019. Emotions, power, and environmental conflict: Expanding the ‘emotional turn’ in political ecology. Progress in Human Geography, p.0309132518824644. 

Andreucci, D., 2019, Populism, Emancipation, and Environmental Governance: Insights from Bolivia, Annals of the American Association of Geographers,109:2, 624-633, DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2018.1506696
(This paper was also given an award from the UPF Department of Political and Social Sciences, as part of a programme called "Ajust/Premis a la Recerca 2018".)

Vandeventer, J., Cattaneo, C. Zografos, C. 2019. A degrowth transition: Pathways for the degrowth niche to replace the capitalist-growth regime. Ecological Economics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.10.002

Navarro, V. (2019). Why the White Working-class Mortality and Morbidity Is Increasing in the United States: The Importance of the Political Context. International Journal of Health Services, 49(2), 197–203.

Peralta A, Benach J, Borrell C, Espinel V, Cash-Gibson L, Queiroz BL, Marí-Dell’Olmo M. Evaluation of the Mortality Registry in Ecuador (2001-2013) - Social and Geographical Inequalities in Completeness and Quality. Population Health Metrics (accepted).

Peralta-Chiriboga A, Espinel-Flores V, Gotsens M, Pèrez G, Benach J, Marí-Dell’Olmo M. Developing a deprivation index to study geographical health inequalities in Ecuador. Rev Saùde Pùblica (accepted).

Andreucci, D. and Engel-Di Mauro S. Capitalism, Socialism and the Challenge of Degrowth: Introduction to the Symposium. Capitalism Nature Socialism. (In print)

A selection from 2018:

Arregui, Javier; Creighton, Mathew J. Public Opinion and the Shaping of Immigration Policy in the European Council of Ministers. Journal of Common Market studies 2018; 56(6): 1323-1344. 

Vergara-Duarte M, Borrell C, Pérez G, Martín-Sánchez JC, Clèries R, Buxó M, Martínez-Solanas È, Yasui Y, Muntaner C, Benach J. Sentinel Amenable Mortality: A New Way to Assess the Quality of Healthcare by Examining Causes of Premature Death for Which Highly Efficacious Medical Interventions Are Available. Biomed Res Int. 2018 Sep 2;2018:5456074. doi: 10.1155/2018/5456074. eCollection 2018.

Rius Ulldemolins A, Benach J, Guisasola L, Artazcoz L. Why are there gender inequalities in visual impairment? Eur J Public Health. 2018 Nov 29. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/cky245.

Cash-Gibson L, Rojas-Gualdrón DF, Pericàs JM, Benach J. Inequalities in global health inequalities research: A 50-year bibliometric analysis (1966-2015). PLoS One. 2018 Jan 31;13(1):e0191901. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191901. eCollection 2018.

Julià M, Belvis F, Vives A, Tarafa G, Benach J. Informal employees in the European Union: working conditions, employment precariousness and health. J Public Health (Oxf). 2018 Jul 2. doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdy111. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 29982746.

Cortès-Franch I, Escribà-Agüir V, Benach J, Artazcoz L. Employment stability and mental health in Spain: towards understanding the influence of gender and partner/marital status. BMC Public Health. 2018 Apr 2;18(1):425. doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5282-3. PubMed PMID: 29606105; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5879603.

Andreucci, D. (2018). Populism, hegemony, and the politics of natural resource extraction in Evo Morales's Bolivia. Antipode, 50(4), 825-845.: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anti.12373