Biography

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Dr. Tammy Leonard's research interests include understanding the impact of housing markets, neighborhoods, non-profit programs, and government policies on health and other measures of well-being, particularly for low-income populations.  Her work is highly interdisciplinary and often involves collaborations across multiple sectors. She is co-director of the Community Assistance Research initiative (CARE, https://www.udallas.edu/care/) and editor of the peer-reviewed journal Review of Regional Studies. In her current work, Dr. Leonard is examining the way in which neighborhood race is capitalized into housing markets.  Housing is a key asset through which families obtain and transfer wealth across generations.  Differences in capacity to generate housing wealth may explain disparities in intergenerational economic mobility and underly mechanisms related to multiple social determinants of health. In other work, Dr. Leonard is collaborating with leaders in the non-profit sector in North Texas to develop new approaches to achieving economic and food security through leveraging behavioral economics and financial coaching models. Together, these approaches are informing a new food assistance program to achieve improved health and wellbeing.

Research Interest

  • Economic and Food Security
  • Economic Factors as a Measure of Health
  • Government Policy/Healthcare Interactions
  • Housing Market-Healthcare Interactions
  • Interdisciplinary Health Research

Publications

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Honors & Awards

  • Best Poster Award - Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science
    Poster Presentation at IPAHS conference in Austin, TX, entitled "Ripple Effects: Do the details of food assistance delivery impact individual health?" (2017-2017)
  • Outstanding Teacher Award for the School of Economic Political and Policy Sciences (University of Dallas; Irving, TX)
    (2014-2014)