AIR 2024 Highlights: Partnering with Communities for Evidence-Based Solutions
We live in a world with many serious and difficult challenges: Inequities abound in educational resources and outcomes, health care access and quality, and workforce opportunities. But instead of dwelling on the negative, at AIR, we are working to turn these challenges into opportunities to help shape the world we want to inhabit.
No matter the type of work, the best solutions often come when we work with those who are closest to the challenges. AIR experts strive to engage with individuals, organizations, and communities involved as respected partners, understanding that their experiences, insights, and expertise inform our own. These connections—or “interplays”—can have a profound effect.
AIR By the Numbers
Building Resilience for 21st Century Success
The Topic: Artificial Intelligence in Education Research
The Work: Breakthroughs in AI offer great potential for research. AI can be used in conducting education research, and experts can also vet AI tools for use in educational settings. Like all tools, AI has its limitations and drawbacks, and AIR experts are leading the charge to develop a set of guiding principles around AI specifically in education research.
The Interplay: Because of variability in quality of AI outputs, AIR experts suggest that researchers, funders, and educators should all agree to basic norms around its use.
The Topic: Veterans’ Education
The Work: The Post-9/11 Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 2008 resulted in a nearly $1 billion investment in postsecondary education benefits to veterans and their families. However, until now there had never been a definitive study of outcomes resulting from this landmark bill.
The Interplay: AIR’s in-depth examination of how veterans use their benefits was made possible by unprecedented interagency sharing of anonymized individual-level data. A research team from AIR analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Veterans Benefit Administration, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Internal Revenue Service, the Census Bureau, and the National Student Clearinghouse. The resulting research provides insights—such as veterans complete college at double the rate of comparable independent students—that can inform broader discussions of college access and tuition-free college.
The Topic: The Environment
The Work: In this Meet the Expert profile, Juan Bonilla shares how AIR worked with partners in rural Africa to promote the cultivation of the orange-fleshed sweet potato, a remarkably resilient crop with an excellent nutritional profile, to reduce malnutrition among women and their infants.
The Interplay: Partnering with local organizations allows researchers to understand the specific challenges these community members face and how they intersect with environmental issues.
The Topic: Sectoral Training Programs
The Work: As our world continues to change rapidly, so do the skills required to stay competitive in the workforce. AIR is working with partners to explore adaptive computer-based learning environments to help upskill and reskill job seekers in high-demand industry sectors, such as IT.
The Interplay: As this pilot project prepares to expand, AIR experts are gathering feedback from users and instructors on the most useful aspects of the program, as well as areas for improvement.
The Topic: Stereotypes in STEM
The Work: Though researchers have studied stereotypes about girls’ abilities in math and science for decades, the studies have often been inconclusive and contradictory. A new meta-analysis by David Miller and Courtney Tanenbaum shows that children as young as 6 already view boys as more capable than girls in computer science and engineering.
The Interplay: The study shows that stereotypes around girls’ computer science and engineering skills are strongest, suggesting that interventions should potentially target those specific topics.
Recognition of Our Work
Heppen, the first woman to lead AIR in its 77-year history, was recognized as one of 16 education experts whose work addresses some of the biggest challenges in the U.S. education system.
AIR Wins Anthem Awards for Mission-Driven Work
AIR won a silver Anthem Award for the AIR Opportunity Fund annual report, which highlights the Fund’s 2023 achievements, including its community-led approach to tackling disparities in education, public safety, workforce development, and community health and well-being.
Creating Context-Specific Solutions
The Topic: Language of Instruction
The Work: Children in low- and middle-income countries often learn to read and write in their second or third languages, rather than their first. AIR experts have conducted research on multilingual educational environments and developed resources to support educators in these settings.
The Interplay: AIR’s Foundational Learning Improvement Program actively engages teachers in training and coaching and builds on community-based activities to strengthen literacy outcomes.
The Topic: Alternative Health Payment Models
The Work: Traditionally, Medicare pays health care providers for each service rendered—a model that provides incentives for procedures, rather than patient outcomes. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is experimenting with value-based payment models, which are meant to reduce costs and improve patients’ health. Karla López de Nava describes how these models are tested and Guido Cataife explains how the models apply to chronic kidney care patients.
The Interplay: When designing alternative payment models, policymakers must work with physicians to understand and effectively lay out incentives.
The Topic: Accurately Identifying Indigenous Students
The Work: The number of indigenous students served by a given school has major funding implications, yet hodgepodge counting methodologies have resulted in significant undercounting. The Indigenous Student Identification Project, supported by the AIR Opportunity Fund, examines how these data are collected and used. In this Q&A, Nara Nayar explains the concrete outcomes that result from undercounting indigenous students, as well as its policy implications.
The Interplay: To offer indigenous students a culturally responsive and relevant education, they first must be correctly identified.
The Topic: Transporting Medical Supplies in Rural Kenya
The Work: There are considerable logistical challenges in getting essential medical supplies to their intended recipients, especially in remote locations. AIR’s monitoring project, Afya Uwazi—which means Transparency in Health in Swahili—is assessing the medical supply chain to understand why supplies often arrive late or with components missing. These lifesaving supplies include contraceptives, diagnostic tests, and mosquito nets.
The Interplay: To fully comprehend what is driving supply problems, monitors travel hundreds of miles to remote areas—sometimes by dinghy or donkey—to interview pharmacy staff, nurses, and health facility managers.
Integrating Life Experiences
The Topic: Technical Assistance
The Work: AIR’s technical assistance experts reinforce their community partners’ knowledge and skills, allowing them to build sustainable, effective systems. In this video, Victoria Cirks and Garry Davis discuss how they approach their work.
The Interplay: “It’s about harnessing the power of the collective to solve challenging problems,” explains Davis.
The Topic: Mentoring Social Scientists
The Work: The AIR Pipeline Partnership Program (P3) offers guidance, mentoring, and learning opportunities to researchers and technical assistance professionals beginning their careers. These mentorships have helped the rising social scientists navigate academic challenges and produce exciting research. P3 is supported by the AIR Opportunity Fund.
The Interplay: Marta Tienda and Odis Johnson Jr., AIR Scholars who serve as P3 mentors, benefited from mentorship earlier in their own careers. Having experienced these valuable relationships themselves, they are eager to sustain a lasting line of mentors into the future.
The Topic: Volunteerism
The Work: In addition to their mission-driven work at AIR, many of our staff also spend their free time volunteering within their communities. In this Q&A, two experts who study youth development and engagement explain why they became mentors, thereby “living the research.” More broadly, staff across the organization dedicate themselves to diverse causes, including food kitchens and eco-action nonprofits.
The Interplay: Mentors insist that they learn from their mentees as much as they impart. “[Mentoring] has shown me some of the real-world limitations that can hinder outcomes in youth development programs,” explains Manolya Tanyu.
The Topic: Youth Voices in Justice Reform
The Work: Issues of policing, justice, and community violence continue to adversely affect the lives of young people in the United States. Multiple AIR projects include active partnerships with youth to create meaningful and sustainable improvements in this space. AIR’s Youth Reentry Training and Technical Assistance Center benefits from the knowledge and life experience of three AIR Youth Fellows.
The Interplay: As AIR Youth Fellows provide valuable insight and expertise in AIR’s technical assistance work, they also benefit from professional development opportunities at AIR.
Looking Ahead to 2025
At AIR, we are excited to continue and expand this important body of work into 2025 and beyond. Among our projects in 2025, AIR will:
- Support the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in its efforts to improve outcomes for patients with mental health or substance use conditions and help CMS develop, maintain, and implement electronic clinical quality measures used to assess Medicare clinician performance;
- Strengthen the governance, transparency, and efficiency of the public-private Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network;
- Measure the delivery, usage, and gender aspects of digital financial services across a range of countries in Asia and Africa;
- Implement and monitor a new program that aims to make cell and gene therapy treatments more available to Medicaid recipients; and
- Partner with 10 school districts on using evidence-based strategies to improve school attendance.