Reversing a trend from the 1990s, poverty has become more concentrated from 2000 to 2005, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution (Christian Science Monitor).

For their study, authors Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube used Census data and Earned Income Tax Credit data from the IRS. They found that the number of poor people living in high poverty communities increased for the majority of metropolitan areas studied.

Citation: Kneebone, E. & Berube, A. (2008). Reversal of Fortune: A New Look at Concentrated Poverty in the 2000s. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

SIPP has released Core Waves 7 and 8 and Topical Module Waves 1-8. PRI Researchers using this data are encouraged to look at SodaPop, PRI’s Data Archive for updated holdings.

Widening gaps in educational attainment threaten economic mobility for the poor, according to a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project (Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog).

See also: New York Times article,  Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America (Economic Mobility Project report)

Growing up poor alters brain development, and new research presented at the annual meeting of American Association for the Advancement of Science could help ameliorate the effects of poverty on academic achievement, according to a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education. (Note: The Chronicle article is available online to subscribers. PRI affiliates can read the Chronicle in the PRI Library or request online access from library@pop.psu.edu.)

Citation: Farah, M.J., Betancourt, L., Shera, D.M., et al. (in press). Environmental Stimulation, Parental Nurturance and Cognitive Development in Humans. Developmental Science. (available online)

Penn State has been able to purchase a one year subscription to Latinobarometro Latinobarometro is an annual public opinion survey that involves some 19,000 interviews in 18 Latin American countries, representing more than 400 million inhabitants. Penn State researchers interested in the survey can Click here for more information and access the survey.

The number of South Africans living on less than $1 a day doubled between 1996 and 2005, according to a survey by the South African Institute of Race Relations (BBC News).

Using Census and Survey Data to Estimate Poverty and Inequality for Small Areas (PDF) by Alessandro Tarozzi and Angus Deaton (June 2007, Princeton University Research Program in Development Studies)

Mothers’ Residential Mobility Following the Birth of a Child (PDF; Fragile Families Research Brief, Princeton Center for Research on Child Wellbeing)

The Effects of Work-Conditioned Transfers on Marriage and Child Well-Being: A Review by Jeffrey Grogger & Lynn Karoly (NBER Working Paper No. 13485, October 2007)

Providing information about public health and social services to poor populations may increase usage, according to a study conducted in India (Johns Hopkins Medicine press release).

Citation: Priyanka Pandey, Ashwini R. Sehgal, Michelle Riboud, et al. (2007). Informing resource-poor populations and the delivery of entitled health and social services in rural India: A cluster randomized controlled trial. JAMA 298:1867-1875. (Available online to the Penn State community)

The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report summarizes two recent PLoS Medicine articles examining the links between HIV/AIDS and development issues like poverty and food insecurity.

The Council of Science Editors organized a Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development, in which science journals throughout the world simultaneously publish articles on this topic on October 22. 235 journals from developed and developing countries participated in the theme issue, including American Journal of Public Health, Health Education and Behavior, Journal of Adolescence, Reproductive Health Matters, and Science.

Penn State users can use the University Libraries Citation Linker to retrieve copies of individual articles.