Research & Outreach Centers

Center for Health Administration Studies

An  interdisciplinary health policy research center in the School of Social Service Administration, the Center for Health Administration Studies (CHAS) draws on the University's outstanding faculty in management, medicine, public policy, and the social sciences. CHAS also supports a substantial program of education, workshop and symposia, and dissemination of health services research.

CHAS conducts studies of local, national, and international health services delivery, with the mission of improving care delivery to vulnerable populations, particularly in urban settings. The Center specializes in evaluation studies that combine elements of medical care delivery, social services, and public health.

Chicago Center for Youth Violence Protection

The Chicago Center for Youth Violence Prevention brings together researchers, community representatives, practitioners and policy makers committed to understanding and reducing youth violence in poor, inner-city communities in Chicago—communities with some of the highest rates of youth violence in the country. The core work of the center is guided by the perspective that the most effective way to combat youth violence is to coordinate empirical "pre-intervention" work designed to understand the risk and development of such violence and to rigorously evaluate preventive interventions conducted both under tightly controlled conditions (i.e., randomized control efficacy trials) and in real world settings (i.e., effectiveness trials). Understanding that context is central to the work of the center is meaningful, in that the characteristics of the neighborhood and community are important in both reducing risk of youth violence and developing effective interventions.

The center's primary aims are to build an integrative approach to address youth violence within poor, inner-city neighborhoods in Chicago. The center will address these issues across developmental periods and with children and families with different levels of risk and involvement in youth violence; promote the use of evidence-based practice to reduce youth violence; develop a comprehensive surveillance system to guide intervention activities and to evaluate changes in youth violence in communities and neighborhoods; provide training and technical assistance to support schools and community agencies in selecting, implementing and evaluating youth violence prevention programs; train new investigators in context-based prevention science; and to disseminate empirical findings regionally and nationally.

Crime Lab

The University of Chicago Crime Lab seeks to improve our understanding of how to reduce crime and violence by helping government agencies and non-profit organizations rigorously evaluate new pilot programs. The Crime Lab began in April 2008 in partnership with the City of Chicago, and has been made possible by generous seed funding from the Joyce Foundation, the University of Chicago Office of the Provost, and the School of Social Service Administration through the Center for Health Administration Studies. 

EINet

The Employment Instability, Family Well-being, and Social Policy Network (EINet), launched in September 2011, seeks to promote research on the nature, sources, and ramifications of employment instability in low-wage jobs, and to develop and evaluate interventions aimed at reducing employment instability and its effects on children and families.

Network for College Success

The Network for College Success (NCS), based at SSA, works closely with leaders of 11 Chicago Public High Schools. The Network's supports include convening the Success Team Collaborative (formerly FSC), the College Counselors Collaborative, and Instructional Leadership Team Institutes. NCS provides coaching, facilitates peer learning, and brings additional expertise such as those from Targeted Leadership Consulting. The Network works in partnership with Chicago Public Schools and Area 21 of CPS. 

SHINE

Associate Professor Dexter Voisin and Assistant Professor Alida Bouris created the STI and HIV Intervention Network (SHINE) to conduct research on the biological, behavioral and structural factors that heighten vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections and HIV among ethnic minority communities in the U.S. The Network will develop and evaluate interventions to alleviate existing STI/HIV disparities.