Research News

A research team, including Cook Center affiliates Imari Z. Smith and Lisa A. Gennetian, reveals that concerns about government surveillance deter Black families from enrolling in early childhood home visiting programs. Despite proven benefits—including reductions in maternal mortality and improvements in child development—Black parents are less likely to enroll due to concerns about government surveillance […]

The Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and Director William “Sandy” Darity Jr. were recently featured in an Inside Philanthropy article discussing the potential impacts of anti-DEI executive orders on funding for reparations research and advocacy. The article highlights the William T. Grant Foundation’s $300,000 grant to the Cook Center in 2021, which supported […]

Cook Center Postdoctoral Associate Will Damron was recently published in the Explorations in Economic History Journal. His research explores a newly-collected dataset covering manufacturers in North Carolina in the early 1900s to examine the effects of electrification at the establishment level. In this paper, Damron studies the gains from electrification and the effects on workers […]

DURHAM, N.C. – The Black-white health gap is one of the most striking examples of the depths of racial inequality in the United States. Why does it persist? A new paper from researchers at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University investigates—and refutes—a popular argument for the causes of this disparity. […]

Associate professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University and Cook Center Faculty Affiliate Dr. Sarah Gaither contributed to a paper recently published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. The study employed a collaborative multi-site approach, and measured 4- to 6-year-old children’s minimal group attitudes and preference for real-world racial/ethnic ingroups […]

Associate professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University and Cook Center Faculty Affiliate Dr. Sarah Gaither contributed to a paper recently published in the Journal of Developmental Science. The paper addresses the ways in which young children rely on a mutual intentionality framework to confer group membership. There were two studies […]

The University of North Carolina Press announced a new book, With Faith in God and Heart and Mind: A History of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. Among the authors is Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at North Carolina Central University, Jim C. Harper II. Harper is a Cook Center Faculty Affiliate and Inequality Studies Instructor, having […]

Cook Center Research Affiliates Eric Griffith, Paul Robbins, and Keisha Bentley-Edwards recently published a paper in the Aging & Mental Health journal investigating relationship between quality of life (QoL), Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) with religion/spirituality (R/S) participation. Black people in the United States (US) experience an increased risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s […]

Founding Director William A. Darity Jr. served as editor, with Isabel Ruiz, of the Autumn 2024 issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, discussing topics on the themes of caste, class, and race. This issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy examined various aspects of inequality and different policy responses across many contexts, […]

A new research initiative led by the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) and the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, aims to address disparities in kidney health caused by structural racism. The Eliminating Racism And Structural inEquities in Kidney Disease (ERASE-KD) consortium seeks to address how systemic inequities—like housing segregation and discriminatory policies—impact kidney […]