Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center

Welcome to the SPHERE Center! 

What we do

The Social Policies for Health Equity Research (SPHERE) Center conducts rigorous studies on the effects of social and economic policies on racial and socioeconomic health disparities; disseminates findings to policymakers, key stakeholders, and the public; and supports the training of the next generation of health equity researchers. Ultimately, the SPHERE Center’s goal is to facilitate evidence-based policymaking that brings societies closer to health equity. 

Under the leadership of director Rita Hamad, the SPHERE Center’s interdisciplinary team of PhD students and early career researchers at Harvard Chan School, the University of California San Francisco, and other institutions studies how various policies around poverty alleviation, education, COVID-19, safety net, and neighborhood disadvantage shape health outcomes. The SPHERE Center examines and evaluates the physical and mental health impacts of anti-poverty measures, such as the Child Tax Credit and the Earnest Income Tax Credit, and national, state, and local education policies. It documents local U.S. pandemic-era policies to better understand how policy variation and implementation have impacted health and health disparities. It assesses whether safety net supports, like food assistance and paid family leave, can improve health for children and adults. And it looks at the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and health across the lifespan. 

In conducting this research, the SPHERE Center offers policymakers, journalists, and the public the evidence base necessary to develop, understand, advocate for, and enact effective social policies that protect and promote health for all people, starting with those most marginalized by forces like poverty, education inequity, and structural racism. These projects also provide hands-on opportunities for students, postdoctoral fellows, and other young researchers to learn and develop their careers in health equity research.