Careers at RFCUNYJob Openings

The New York Retirement and Disability Research Center (NY-RDRC) focuses on structural health, wealth, and life course processes that yield opportunities and social and economic stratification. It also focuses on the complexities associated with today’s disparities arising from the larger political economy, geographical divides between urban, suburban, and rural places, the changing workplace and nature of employment, and climate instability.   

Bringing together Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) within the City University of New York (CUNY) – the CUNY Institute for Demographic Research (CIDR) and the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging – with the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) at The New School, the center is uniquely situated to address these concerns by bringing together interdisciplinary scholarship and methods from demography, economics, public health, social gerontology, sociology, and urban planning.

The Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging

Through research, policy and professional development the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging is refining services for older adults in ways that lead to tangible gains in health, safety and quality of life. From the Center’s location in East Harlem, Brookdale staff is engaged in evaluating cutting-edge practices and spreading those that strengthen the systems, organizations and individuals that serve older adults. Brookdale is also a place where human services professionals, lawyers and other advocates come to expand their knowledge and sharpen their skills.

The Brookdale Center seeks a full-time Research Associate to provide solid leadership in community liaison work, project management, and research development. The Research Associate will report to and work closely with the Research Director.

Research Projects the position will work on:

The Re-Entry and Disability Application Experiences of Older Formerly Incarcerated Older Adults 

Over 10 percent of the U.S. state prison population is 55 years and older and has a higher prevalence of chronic conditions and disability compared to the general population. Upon release from prison, many are unable to work and face myriad barriers in receiving disability benefits. A life course perspective on incarceration using a cumulative disadvantage framework is needed to illuminate unanswered questions about Social Security Administration (SSA) benefits eligibility and access barriers for formerly incarcerated older adults (FIOAs) to support their re-entry to society. We will conduct a community-based participatory research study of barriers encountered by FIOAs in New York State in accessing SSA disability benefits. A community advisory board (CAB) of ten FIOAs will be convened for guidance on research protocol development, interpretation of findings and recommendations. We will conduct four key informant interviews with staff and community leaders from FIOA-serving organizations with whom we have ongoing relationships. We will recruit 30 FIOAs for semi-structured interviews to elucidate life course trajectories regarding incarceration and access to benefits upon release. Qualitative thematic inductive analysis will inform project deliverables of:  

• Policy recommendations for SSA to reduce barriers and increase uptake of SSI and SSDI program benefits.  
• Program recommendations for Re-entry Service Providers to facilitate SSI and SSDI program access.  
• Dissemination of study findings (white papers, presentations, publications).  
• Development of strategies to conduct a large-scale study of the life course effects of incarceration on SSA program access and utilization. 

Barriers to Social Security Administration Application and Interaction Encountered by Older Adults Who Have LGBTQ+ or Gender Diverse Identities

The Social Security Administration (SSA) office is the most frequently reported government service used by LGBTQ+ older adults (range 43% to 63%), and they face numerous barriers when accessing aging services. But the extent of barriers due to implicit bias on the part of SSA staff in accessing benefits is unknown. No research could be identified that examined what barriers exist for LGBTQ+ older adults in applying for SSA benefits or difficulties interacting with this agency due to implicit bias. But help accessing entitlements is a primary service need among LGBTQ+ older adults (range 23% to 44%) strongly suggesting these issues may also exist regarding application for SSA benefits and SSA staff interactions and may be associated with implicit bias on the part of agency staff.  To address this gap, we propose a community-based participatory research study of barriers faced by LGBTQ+ older adults in applying for SSA benefits and interacting with SSA offices. A community advisory board (CAB) of LGBTQ+ older adults will be convened. We will recruit 20 LGBTQ+ for two focus groups and a comparator focus group of 10 heterosexual-cisgender older adults, along with five professionals for key informant interviews. We will use thematic inductive analysis with group comparisons by LGBTQ+ status using conceptual matrices to identify implicit bias. 

Exploring the Role of Digital Trust in Online Interactions with SSA Services by Beneficiaries 

Digital trust refers to a person’s confidence that their privacy and the personal data they share online will be protected. Older adults have demonstrated lower levels of trust in sharing confidential information online due to fear of identity theft and financial scams. This digital distrust contributes to low utilization of web-based services to access and manage government benefits among older adults compared to younger adults. Further, some immigrants have low levels of trust in government services due to fears of deportation and persistent anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) online portal, mySSA, includes benefit information, application forms, tax document delivery, and other administrative services. To date, there is almost no published research investigating attitudinal barriers to immigrant beneficiaries’ use of government e-services like mySSA. Understanding these barriers and lack of digital trust is critical for SSA’s development of effective outreach and communication strategies to increase the use of mySSA by older adult immigrants.To address this gap, we propose a community-based participatory research study of factors affecting perceptions of trust and use of mySSA among two immigrant groups in New York City: Chinese- and Spanish-speaking older adults. Findings from our qualitative study of this topic will yield:  

• Policy and program recommendations for how SSA can improve uptake and user experience of mySSA by addressing privacy and online safety concerns by reducing digital distrust.  
• A plain language summary of findings for members of these immigrant communities.  
• Dissemination of findings (white papers, presentations, peer-reviewed publications)  
• Development of future research to follow-up and expand initial findings.