In New Jersey, the state government proactively advances equity through the Office of Equity within the Office of the Governor, as well as through various programs and budget initiatives intended to support New Jerseyans. To enhance these efforts, researchers recommend incorporating equity measures into department/agency performance assessments to ensure equity is engrained within the ongoing routines of the government.
Topic
Research, Publications, and Reports
Report: New Jersey’s Rising Seas and Changing Coastal Storms
The STAP was charged with identifying, evaluating, and summarizing the most current science on sea-level change (i.e., historic sea-level rise and projections of future sea-level rise) and changing coastal storms. The 17 expert members of the STAP convened between November 2024 and September 2025 to draft this report and revise it in response to independent review by four peer experts and feedback on its usability from a panel of practitioners.
Ralph: Public Support for Automated Speed Enforcement
A survey experiment reveals that a brief safety message increases support among those who initially underestimated the dangers of speed. Scholars should employ relative scales and practitioners should emphasize the risks of speed.
Bhuyan: Congress must extend the ACA subsidies or expect a crisis in N.J.
“New Jersey has spent years building a promise: all its residents should have access to affordable healthcare, regardless of income or zip code. That promise depends on Congress extending the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced subsidies.”
NJSPL Report: Health Insurance Literacy Initiatives
Researchers with Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, in collaboration with the New Jersey State Policy Lab, have developed a report which is intended to serve as the first comprehensive state-by-state guide of health insurance literacy educational resources and/or interventions available across the U.S.
Heldrich Report: Stability, Shortages, and Shifts in NJ Teacher Workforce
New Jersey continues to face teacher shortages in critical subjects, while overall workforce levels remain steady, according to a new report released by the Heldrich Center. The report, New Jersey’s Teacher Workforce: 2025 Legislative Report, offers a decade-long perspective on teacher supply, exits, and workforce challenges, drawing on data from the New Jersey Statewide Data System.
NJSPL Report: The Role of Quality Ratings in Long-Term Care
Researchers evaluated the quality of nursing homes in NJ relative to national trends and analyzed data from the CMS’ Nursing Home Compare five-star public reporting system to track changes in nursing home quality and performance. The report found that while state nursing homes generally outperform the national average, their overall ratings have declined significantly since 2020.
Kumar, Andrews: Energy Efficiency Policies in Transition
Using a multi-disciplinary lens, we explore the underlying paradigms, dynamics, synergies, and trade-offs between different actors, institutions, and situational contexts influencing complex energy efficiency policy processes.
Heldrich Report: Voices of the Family Child Care Workforce in NJ
In 2024, the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development launched a statewide survey of registered family child care (FCC) providers in New Jersey as part of the Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative, an initiative focused on child care in the state. The survey asked individuals who provide child care in their homes to share their voices and experiences — from what inspires them to enter and stay in the field, to the challenges they face in their daily work, and their ideas for making child care a more sustainable and rewarding profession.
Assessing Pedestrian Stress with Biometrics & Surveys
We investigate the association between pedestrians’ sensor-measured stress and survey-reported stress, as well as the temporal sensitivity of sensor metrics across varying time intervals.