Documenting the War on Poverty's Community Programs

描述（由申请人提供）：在林登·b·约翰逊总统宣布“无条件向贫困宣战”45多年后，很少有系统的计量经济学研究评估“向贫困宣战”社区项目的健康效益。关于这一主题缺乏证据的主要原因是缺乏关于哪些社区获得了“向贫困宣战”项目的联邦拨款、何时获得拨款、这些拨款的用途以及分配了多少资金的数据。拟议的研究旨在通过以下四个具体目标来弥补这一不足：(1)收集和整理有关接受“向贫困宣战”赠款的人的信息，赠款下的服务是在哪里提供的，赠款何时发放的，赠款支付给了什么项目，以及赠款金额；(2)研究在“向贫困宣战”下，联邦政府对不同社区和项目的拨款的决定因素；(3)研究不同项目的“向贫困宣战”拨款的一致性和互补性；(4)发布一个关于“向贫困宣战”拨款的新数据集（收集于具体目标1），供其他研究人员使用。拟议的研究在几个方面有助于卫生政策和社会科学知识。首先，它将提供比以往在电子数据库中汇编的更详细的、按方案和赠款分列的拨款地方性量化。其次，按项目、受助人、地点和日期划分的向贫困宣战的新电子数据集将为今后分析这些项目的效果奠定基础，并鼓励对这些项目的效果进行分析。最后，了解不同目的、不同社区和不同数量的补助金的决定因素，不仅可以深入了解“向贫困宣战”政府的内部运作，而且还揭示了用于评估这些计划的替代计量经济学估计器的假设有效性。关于向贫困宣战的“治疗”（目标1）以及这些治疗的决定因素（目标2和3）的详细信息，共同为本研究人员和其他人（目标4）对这些计划对人口健康的平均、局部影响进行准实验、计量经济评估奠定了基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): More than forty-five years after President Lyndon B. Johnson declared an "unconditional war on poverty," little systematic, econometric research has evaluated the health benefits of the War on Poverty's community programs. The main reason for the dearth of evidence on this topic is the lack of data on which communities received federal grants for War on Poverty programs, when they received them, what these grants were for, and how much funding was allocated. The proposed research aims to remedy this deficiency by pursuing four specific aims: (1) Collecting and cleaning information on the who received War on Poverty grants, where services under the grant were delivered, when the grant was awarded, what program the grant paid for, and the amount of the grant; (2) Examining the determinants of federal grants to different communities and programs under the War on Poverty; (3) Examining the coincidence and complementarity of War on Poverty grants for different programs, and (4) Distributing a new dataset on War on Poverty grants (collected in specific aim 1) for use by other researchers. The proposed research contributes to health policy and social science knowledge in several ways. First, it will provide a more detailed, local quantification of appropriations by program and grantee than ever assembled in an electronic database. Second, the new electronic dataset of War on Poverty grants by program, grantee, location and date will lay the groundwork for and encourage future analysis of the effects of these programs. Finally, understanding the determinants of grants for different purposes, communities and amounts not only provides insight into the internal workings of the War on Poverty administration, but this also sheds light on the validity of assumptions for alternative econometric estimators with which to evaluate these programs. Detailed information on the War on Poverty "treatments" (Aim 1) as well as the determinants of these treatments (Aims 2 and 3) together lay the foundation for quasi-experimental, econometric evaluations of the average, local effects of these programs on population health by this researcher and others (Aim 4). PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project contributes to public health knowledge in two main ways. First, it will aid researchers in understanding the impact and effectiveness of federal grants for social programs by compiling, encoding and disseminating information on the federal grants to improve public health under the War on Poverty. Second, this project will help create better estimates of the shorter- and longer-term benefits of War on Poverty public health programs in the U.S. These estimates should assist policy- makers and philanthropists in making funding decisions about current programs in the U.S. and abroad.