University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR)

In a project that aims to promote public awareness and understanding of food hardship, University of Michigan researchers Helen Levy and Natasha Pilkauskas will lead the collection of monthly data on food insufficiency from a national sample of U.S. households. The project will release quarterly issue briefs tracking food insufficiency rates overall and among key groups, including households with children and older adults.

The underlying microdata will be made publicly available at no cost, providing researchers, policymakers, and the public with an up-to-date picture of how vulnerable families are faring.

Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy University of Michigan

Join us Aug. 27 for the premiere of Piano Lab Pro, a new Apple Vision Pro app designed to help musicians understand and manage performance anxiety through immersive extended reality.

Developed through a collaboration between University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Michigan Online, and the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, the app combines biofeedback research with emerging technology and is now being integrated into U-M's class piano curriculum.

The event will feature a live demonstration, insights into the research behind the project, and remarks from SMTD Dean David Gier, ISR Director Kate Cagney, and Center for Academic Innovation CTO Jeremy Nelson.

Two recently released election polls were revealed to be fabricated as part of what their creators called a “social experiment,” raising questions about how easily false polling information can spread.

ISR researcher Josh Pasek explains that the growing number of pollsters and low barriers to distributing results can make it harder for the public to distinguish high-quality polling from unreliable data. He also notes that even small amounts of manipulated information can have an outsized influence on prediction and betting markets.

Read more about what the incident reveals about polling quality and the way political information spreads.

IMAGE CREDIT: Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

Piano Lab Pro: The Science of Stage Presence - University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance Piano Lab Pro: The Science of Stage Presence Immersive tools that help musicians understand and manage performance anxiety – now entering the University of Michigan class piano curriculum. Piano Lab Pro is a new Apple Vision Pro app that lets pianists face the pressure of performing before it ever...

Rising prices are outpacing wage growth, leaving many Americans with less purchasing power.

Joanne Hsu, director of the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, told Marketplace that consumers are trading down and spending more cautiously. At the same time, higher-income households with substantial stock wealth may not be changing their spending nearly as much.

Read more about how these differences are shaping consumer spending and Americans’ experiences of the economy:

U.S. consumers' real earnings have been falling The rise in oil prices and other commodities is helping to drive inflation up, with price increases outpacing wage gains.

Parks can support physical and mental health, but new ISR research shows that many also have industrial or hazardous waste sites nearby.

ISR researchers helped examine more than 151,000 public parks across the U.S. The study found that more than half are within two miles of an active industrial facility handling toxic chemicals, while nearly 27,000 are close to a Superfund site.

The study did not measure pollution inside parks or determine whether visitors are exposed. Instead, the findings add important context to how researchers understand neighborhood environments and provide a public mapping tool for identifying areas where additional research may be needed.

The research team includes ISR researchers Elliott Chemberlin, Philippa Clarke, Robert Melendez, Kate Duchowny, Lindsay Gypin and Grace Noppert. Explore the findings and the public mapping tool available through ISR’s National Neighborhood Data Archive.

The University of Michigan Board of Regents announced Dr. C. Cybele Raver as its choice to become the university’s 17th president. The Board will hold a special meeting on Sept. 1 to take a formal vote. Pending approval, Dr. Raver’s appointment will take effect Dec. 1. Dr. Raver, currently the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Vanderbilt University, is a nationally recognized leader in higher education. myumi.ch/xjwJm

The landscape of adult substance use in the U.S. continues to shift.

New 2025 findings from ISR’s Monitoring the Future Longitudinal Panel Study show cannabis use remaining at or near record highs, while ni****ne va**ng and ni****ne pouch use also remain elevated. At the same time, cigarette smoking stayed relatively low, and several measures of alcohol use among young adults remained at low levels.

“Changing patterns of cannabis and ni****ne use illustrate the shifting landscape of substance use in the U.S.,” said ISR researcher Megan Patrick, principal investigator of the MTF Longitudinal Panel Study.

Read more about what the latest data reveal about changing substance use patterns among U.S. adults ages 19 to 65.

Michigan’s U.S. Senate race is moving into the general election after a closely contested Democratic primary.

ISR researcher Mike Traugott breaks down the spending, voter coalitions and campaign strategies behind Abdul El-Sayed’s primary win, including differences by age, geography and voting method. He also looks ahead at how the race could change as El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers in November.

Read more about what the primary results reveal about Michigan voters and the challenges ahead in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races. The Conversation US

PHOTO CREDIT: AP Photo/Paul Sancya

Racial income inequality in the U.S. has changed considerably over the past five decades, but those changes look very different depending on where you live.

New research from Robert Manduca, assistant professor of sociology and faculty associate at ISR’s Population Studies Center and Stone Center for Inequality Dynamics, maps shifts in Black-white family income disparities since 1969. While the national income ratio changed relatively little, Manduca finds substantial geographic movement: disparities narrowed across much of the South while widening in parts of the Northeast and Midwest.

Read more about how changes in regional economies and income growth are reshaping the geography of racial inequality in America.