Chicago’s deadly 1995 heat wave showed how neighborhood conditions and social ties determine who stays safe in extreme weather. Now, IPR associate Dan Horton is leading a working group to map those risks through a Heat Vulnerability Index. Combining data like temperature, public health records, and residents’ on-the-ground insights, the index will pinpoint which Chicago communities face the greatest danger as climate change makes heat waves more common.

Visiting Scholars and Policy Fellows Programs

In 2025, IPR’s researchers examined some of the most pressing social issues, including the real-world implications of artificial intelligence and the persistent racial disparities in maternal health.  IPR research continued to inform policy nationally and locally, contributing evidence to debates on young-adult sentencing reform and wage theft among fast-food workers. Our faculty’s work also helped guide global conversations about water insecurity and highlighted the effectiveness of community-based strategies to reduce gun violence in Chicago.

New research shows that Black women living in Chicago neighborhoods with discriminatory law enforcement practices and unequal schools that lacked resources were more likely to give birth preterm compared to Black women in neighborhoods without these characteristics. These findings may help explain why Black women experience disproportionately high rates of preterm birth and identify those most at risk for delivering their babies early.

IPR organizes a wide variety of events across the year from academic talks and distinguished lectures to workshops and trainings.

On March 4, 2025, IPR anthropologist Sera Young accepted the inaugural “Champions of Health” Award on behalf of the WISE Scales. This prestigious award was given by the Director of Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health (INSP) at the Teopanzolco Cultural Center in Cuernavaca, Mexico. It was established to recognize “leadership, commitment, and humanitarian contributions to health in the Americas and beyond.”

IPR economist shares lessons learned serving on the Council of Economic Advisers IPR economist never imagined he'd end up advising the president of the United States on economic policy. "The idea that I'd be working in a policy situation is not actually that surprising.

For more than 50 years, researchers at the Institute for Policy Research have pursued a singular focus: providing the evidence that policymakers need to make people's lives better. Our scholars tackle urgent challenges-from unsafe drinking water to gun violence to the toll discrimination takes on the body-through rigorous, policy-relevant research.

IPR Visiting Scholar Brendan Nyhan explains that fact-checking can change minds—but only if people see it.

New research by IPR political scientist Mary McGrath reveals that after going through four weekly guided discussions, pairs of friends and family members with opposite views about climate change were less polarized about their beliefs. People skeptical of climate change were more likely to see it as an issue that required action and that they believed in—a change that lasted at least three months after going through the intervention.