EPIC Policy Briefs: Recent Research in School Free Lunch Programs and Baby-Friendly Hospital Designations
Dr. Orgul Demet Ozturk is the department chair and professor of economics in the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Her academic research interests are in applied microeconomics fields, specifically labor economics and health economics. Ozturk has written articles on the effects of labor market regulations and minimum wages on female employment, effectiveness of supported employment programs for developmentally disabled, the relationship between occupation choice and welfare independence, and the effects of maternal employment and welfare use on children’s cognitive outcomes.
Orgul was on Season 2 Episode 1 to talk about long term impact of teacher incentive pay programs. In this visit, she focused on the two recent papers she had accepted for publication. But first, we talked about the academic structure of approved research, methodologies, submission for publication, peer review, and the importance of the structure.
Topics include:
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Photo Courtesy: University of South Carolina
Kasie Whitener (00:05):
Welcome into Moore Impact. This is Kasie Whitener, your host for our Darla Moore show. Darla Moore School of Business on the local radio show, uh, where we like to bring our scholars in from the Darla Moore School here to make the point radio.com and 100.7 the point in Columbia, South Carolina, and learn a little bit more about the research that they're doing and the really important work that they're putting out into the world. And today, I'm so glad to be reunited with Dr. Orgul Ozturk, who is the department chair and center director for Economic Policy and Innovation, the EPIC Center and the department chair for the economics department. And we just had a whole investiture ceremony for you back in the, in, uh, the spring. And, um, we have an episode on that. So if you're looking for that, you can learn more about Dr. Ozturk there. But Orgul, I'm so glad to see you.
Orgul Ozturk (00:48):
Yeah, I'm so glad to be here.
Kasie Whitener (00:49):
How was your summer?
Orgul Ozturk (00:50):
Summer was awesome.
Kasie Whitener (00:51):
What did you do this summer?
Orgul Ozturk (00:53):
Traveled mostly. Yeah. Where'd you go? Um, I usually take a group of students to New Zealand. That was my first stop. Came back and in four days with family, went to Europe, went to Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, uh, Czech Republic, and Hungary.
Kasie Whitener (01:09):
Alright. Did you get to see your folks in Hungary?
Orgul Ozturk (01:11):
Uh, no. I didn't see, no, they
Kasie Whitener (01:12):
No, they're in Turkey.
Orgul Ozturk (01:13):
Yeah, I didn't, unfortunately this year was not a Turkey year, but I'm going to go for a conference soon and make a stop with my parents.
Kasie Whitener (01:20):
Alright. What do the kids think of traveling all over Europe?
Orgul Ozturk (01:23):
Uh, I mean, they mostly enjoy it, but we make them walk a lot
Kasie Whitener (01:41):
Yeah.
Orgul Ozturk (01:41):
But they answer.
Kasie Whitener (01:41):
Was this all tourism or were you working while you were there?
Orgul Ozturk (01:44):
Uh, I mean, I always work, but uh, that's beside the point. It was
Kasie Whitener (02:00):
Ah, that's good stuff. So now, over the summer, excuse me, you did have some papers that were underway and things that were getting ready or considered for publications. So tell us where you're at as far as that's concerned.
Orgul Ozturk (02:10):
So, as you know, uh, we go out after the school is done, go out for vacation. Uh, all the editors,
Kasie Whitener (02:17):
You guys missed the air quotes. You miss the air quotes of the vacation
Orgul Ozturk (02:21):
All the, uh, editors and the reviewers get back to that queue of papers that they were reviewing or, you know, waiting to review. Right.
Kasie Whitener (02:28):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (02:28):
So that is where a lot of action happens in the publication kind of side of things. So, uh, we finished some R&R's that is revise and resubmit, not, uh, whatever the normal people use R&R for.
Kasie Whitener (02:41):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (02:42):
It's no resting.
Kasie Whitener (02:43):
It's not rest and relaxation.
Orgul Ozturk (02:44):
No, rest and relaxation, not, it is just revise and resubmit. Uh, but also heard from some of the papers we previously did and resubmitted, and it was good news. So it's always good to hear that acceptance, uh, decision. And, uh, I had two papers recently reach that final destination,
Kasie Whitener (03:03):
Which is amazing. I wanna talk through a little bit of that process. I want, I, I want our listeners to understand sort of the academic process in terms of this being a part of your career that is not necessarily open and visible to the public. It's not as transparent as the classroom work, right. Is the work that you're doing with students and, you know, guiding PhD students and the kinds of things that you do where you're helping people and the scholarship side or the, uh, sorry, the, the education side necessarily. The scholarship side is a little bit hidden. It's a little bit sort of behind the doors. And, uh, I think the last time you were on here, we talked about sort of how long these kinds of processes take, where you've designed a study, you have a hypothesis you wanna test, you've built out what you think are, these are the right ways to test that hypothesis.
Kasie Whitener (03:44):
And then you develop the actual test. You do the test, but then you also have to gather all the research existing that what does everybody else already learned about this? And how do we patch that around to sort of tell the story of this hypothesis that we're about to test. And then you do the test, and then you have the results and you, and, and you build out this whole paper that's got all of this information in it. And then you say, but here's the things we didn't look at. And these are like the areas for future research. Yeah. And so these are like the basic segments, right? The literature review, the actual test itself, the results of the test, and then you have the literature or the, at the end, the, the future research, right?
Orgul Ozturk (04:18):
Yeah. I mean, uh, the type of research I do relies on, uh, data, administrative data. So, um, this project, I, the one we are gonna talk about today started, uh, pre pandemic, you know, end of 2019.
Kasie Whitener (04:30):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (04:30):
And, uh, we started a lot of meetings. What, uh, the question we had was clear, uh, based on our previous research, my collaborators and ours. Uh, then we had to figure out like, uh, the questions, can I, can they be testable? What is testable? What data exists out there? And it was a long, arduous process. Yes.
Kasie Whitener (04:52):
Yeah.
Orgul Ozturk (04:52):
And you kind of have to fit it in because just having a good question and providing a good answer, a reliable, robust answer doesn't mean it's gonna get published.
Kasie Whitener (05:02):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (05:03):
On the other side, those, um, blind reviewers, blind, they are not blind to you most of the time, but they're, you are blind to them. That anonymous reviewers, they tear, that's their job. They tear it apart. They make sure that it is not, um, false. What you're doing is concrete and it is, uh, solid.
Kasie Whitener (05:20):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (05:20):
So it's a necessary process. I'm not complaining about that.
Kasie Whitener (05:24):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (05:24):
But it takes a long time. And finally, after they said, okay, you have my blessing. You say, here it is. But you have to really position yourself, like you said, as a contribution.
Kasie Whitener (05:34):
Yeah, because we're talking about creating new knowledge.
Orgul Ozturk (05:36):
Yes.
Kasie Whitener (05:36):
I mean, that was the thing when I went into my PhD program and they explained to us like, this is what we're talking about doing. People who have PhDs who do this kind of academic research, the ones that are, you know, building into these scholarly journals, they're creating something new. We didn't know this before, and now we do. And so there is an arduous process. There is a peer review process where all the people, like you said, they tear it apart, but they go in, they try to say, number one, did we already know this? Right? Is this redundant? You know? And then number two, did you test this in a way that we think it's a reliable test? Did you consider all these other factors? And if, if so, how did you rule those out? And when you were here in the spring, you were talking about the, the, the review and resubmit, which is the R&R, right? The R&R process, which is once somebody's already looked at it and they say, well, hey, these are the things that you missed. I want you to, you know, make note of these in the paper. And so when you bring it back for review and resubmit, you're going through and looking at things maybe you didn't even know were adjacent to this particular question.
Orgul Ozturk (06:32):
And I think that's the best part of it, actually. When somebody, an outside eye that hasn't been, you know, when you read the same text, how you miss typos, for example. Think about the research that way when outsider looks at it, they have a very fresh perspective. They are usually people who have some expertise in the area, and so they are coming with the necessary knowledge,
Kasie Whitener (06:52):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (06:52):
But they're looking at your data, your, uh, arguments from a fresh point.
Kasie Whitener (06:57):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (06:58):
And that really is very useful when you get a good reviewer, that is the best thing that can happen to a paper at the end of that R&R. It is painful. You always love to have, like, I have never had one of these
Kasie Whitener (07:14):
A plus!
Orgul Ozturk (07:14):
Yes.
Kasie Whitener (07:14):
Plus, plus, yeah.
Orgul Ozturk (07:16):
But, um, I think this is a very necessary and, um, with good reviewers, excellent part of the scientific process, you at the end get something that is work of your, um, the town, basically.
Kasie Whitener (07:32):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (07:33):
I know the researchers, but everybody contributes, uh, that intellectual, um, out product.
Kasie Whitener (07:38):
From, from the community. Yeah, exactly. And it ends up being sourced from multiple ideas, multiple thoughts, multiple brains, multiple backgrounds and histories. And so you bring all of that diversity into that conversation. And it's, Hey, this isn't just one person's opinion because of an experience they one time had at this one place at this one time. It's, this is a testable hypothesis. This is data that we're using to back it up. And oh, by the way, our methods have been reviewed by folks that know what they're talking about and know what they're doing, and they're able to prove that this in fact is new knowledge. We did not know this before. And here is the evidence of this new knowledge.
Orgul Ozturk (08:10):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, um, when, uh, it is done well. As it is, uh, supposed to be, it is one of the best things.
Kasie Whitener (08:18):
Yeah.
Orgul Ozturk (08:19):
And I mean, this is why we don't like release every single research we do. We have many, many research projects going on in any given time in the department, but we don't release them as policy briefs, for example, unless they reach to that point.
Kasie Whitener (08:32):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (08:33):
Somebody else had their eyes on it.
Kasie Whitener (08:35):
Till they've been vetted. Mm-hmm
Kasie Whitener (09:01):
Welcome back to Moore Impact, Kasie and Orgul here. And we're talking about research and the process of research and how research gets, uh, completed and then submitted. And I was telling you on the break that I was listening to this other podcast about this gal that was saying that with the NIH grants and the money being pulled back from the administration, there's this maybe a, a misunderstanding about how long the scientific process takes in any one discipline of study and how long it takes to create this new knowledge that we were just talking about. And there is this kind of apparatus, which is what happens after the work is done, is you submit it to a journal. There's a reading fee to submit to the journal. The journal is a, um, there, there's a profit motive in this journal to solicit as many manuscripts as they can to generate as much income as they can on those $200 submission fees.
Kasie Whitener (09:48):
But then on top of that, they, the schools pay for a subscription to the journals to be able to have access to the journal material. Um, and those subscriptions can run $6,000, $7,000 a year. I mean, granted, it's everybody in the school now has access to it. So, you know, I realistically from like a, and you have access to the entirety of their archives. So from like a per word perspective, it's like, you know, Spotify rates, you know what I'm saying?
Kasie Whitener (10:40):
And it, so they're not incentivized to just say, Hey, this looks great. Right? Um, instead they're incentivized to, as you said, poke holes in it and say, this doesn't look great, and here's why. Um, so I just, I don't know if you think, is there, I don't know that there's a better way to do that from a, um, apparatus perspective, but I mean, there is sort of, maybe people don't understand like what that looks like. There isn't a, I mean, although they is like the Academy of Management Journal, and so technically it is like sort of our professional field and management and economics has the same. Um, and so it, I I just kind of riff on that for, like I said, I don't really have a full question. I just wanted to like lay that out there for you.
Orgul Ozturk (11:17):
Kasie Whitener (11:39):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (11:39):
But to the journals, like let's say top 100, uh, that 200, uh, dollars or so, submission fee is what we usually experience. Like you said, rivers, usually, uh, in rare cases, there is some, uh, very small amount and a hundred dollars to review a paper, but usually you don't get paid to review.
Kasie Whitener (11:57):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (11:57):
But, um, we, on the department side, for example, when we are evaluating a junior faculty, the fact that they are being asked to review a paper, especially in the top journals, it means a lot.
Kasie Whitener (12:10):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (12:11):
It means that they are nationally, internationally recognized.
Kasie Whitener (12:14):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (12:14):
So that contributes to, uh, both their professional service in our record keeping um, that is part of the job, but also, uh, their, um, research, uh, existence, you know, how well they are known, the research, uh, credibility is reinforced by that.
Kasie Whitener (12:33):
Which raises the overall credibility of the department.
Orgul Ozturk (12:35):
Exactly.
Kasie Whitener (12:35):
Which, which basically raises everybody's, you know, standing in the academic world.
Orgul Ozturk (12:39):
Exactly.
Kasie Whitener (12:40):
Yeah. And, and it's understandable, although, again, it's sort of insular because if you look at, you know, whether or not the folks in government care anything about that, whether or not the folks in, in, you know, in Walmart care, anything about that, like, it's, it really is about our world, our academic world. That's where those reputations are, are made and are important.
Orgul Ozturk (12:58):
I mean, um, you are, if even if the, uh, authors don't know you, the editor who approached you, who are usually, you know, very prominent people, uh, they read your reviews, they get an impression of your, uh, you know, understanding of the concepts that are discussed from your reviews that you submitted, that discussion, a rich discussion tells a lot about you. Right? So, I mean, it is, uh, reputation building, um, but, uh, usually it is not really, uh, rewarded,
Kasie Whitener (13:26):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (13:26):
But it is the in, you know, intrinsic value of it.
Kasie Whitener (13:29):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (13:29):
You are at the end, um, getting knowledge of what is happening around you.
Kasie Whitener (13:33):
Sure.
Orgul Ozturk (13:34):
So it helps you kind of position yourself and make your own science better, but also, um, it gives you a chance to, I mean, you want it to be not crap that is being published.
Kasie Whitener (13:44):
Orgul Ozturk (13:45):
Right? You want it to be solid. This is at the end, the knowledge we are building. And, uh, people don't get into academia if they didn't have these values.
Kasie Whitener (13:54):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (13:54):
So, uh, it is mostly done though without any, uh, thank yous other than the editors. Thank you for accepting.
Kasie Whitener (14:02):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (14:02):
Thank you for returning me to me on time.
Kasie Whitener (14:11):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (14:12):
They're, you know, promotions that are at stake.
Kasie Whitener (14:14):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (14:14):
Which is not gonna happen if they don't publish.
Kasie Whitener (14:16):
Right. Right. Um, and so I think maybe that's a great way to sort of demystify, like, this is a career that not a lot of people have. Uh, and although we think of here in town, like we are, we're a big university, so we have a lot of PhDs around here. It's hard to swing a dead cat without hitting a PhD in Columbia because of, uh, we, we are a big university, but in most places, the academia is not, uh, as prominent as it is in Columbia. And so we don't necessarily have as much visibility or access to like what that career path looks like and how people do get accepted as junior faculty members. And they're expected to do certain things both in the classroom, but also on the research side and on the service side in terms of being able to contribute to the overall academe, right. Or, uh, the academy. Yeah. And so I think it's just worth it to kind of help people understand what that looks like. Especially because we're gonna talk about these two papers that you've had accepted this summer, and, and what a hu these are, these are big wins, like you said, one of them you've been waiting, working on since 2019.
Orgul Ozturk (15:09):
Yeah. And, uh, I wanna say something, it is not only academics, uh, uh, that review papers. Uh, I have, uh, friends from grad school, none, you know, they're PhDs, but they're not working in academia. It is. They still review papers, and approach when it is in their expertise, when they're still involved in research, even if it is not in academia.
Kasie Whitener (15:27):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (15:28):
Uh, it is their way of keeping up. It's their way of kind of contributing. And, um, yeah. It is, um, the process is, I know very mysterious for outsiders, my parents included.
Kasie Whitener (15:41):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (15:41):
But, uh, it can be quite rewarding, uh, even if it is tankless.
Kasie Whitener (15:45):
And you Well, yeah. And you want your practitioners to stay informed, right? So I think about like my general practitioner, my GP, my, my doc, and like the last time I saw him about a year ago, we had like zero conversation about perimenopause or like, what's happening, you know, biologically at like a certain age. Right? Um, and then a year later, that's all he wanted to talk about
Orgul Ozturk (16:48):
So, that is, um, I had, it was about, uh, Community Eligibility Provision. It is, uh, free school lunches. I have done work with South Carolina, uh, before data before on this topic to understand if, uh, they are contributing to students' learning. Uh, they, if they're contributing to, um, the, um, just attendance or discipline issues that we face. And
Kasie Whitener (17:11):
We are a big recipient of free lunch in South Carolina.
Orgul Ozturk (17:13):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh,
Kasie Whitener (17:15):
From the federal level.
Orgul Ozturk (17:16):
Exactly.
Kasie Whitener (17:16):
Yeah.
Orgul Ozturk (17:16):
So, uh, this program, uh, is different from some of the earlier programs. Uh, it is, um, basically in a school, if it is a CP school, every student, uh, even if they are not eligible for free lunch, uh, gets lunch for free.
Kasie Whitener (17:33):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (17:33):
And breakfast free for free as well. Uh, basically, school doesn't keep, um, the pap uh, all the, uh, administrative, uh, things that they used to do, uh, to determine eligibility of the students. If they are qualifying for free or reduced price lunch,
Kasie Whitener (17:47):
They just give it to everybody.
Orgul Ozturk (17:48):
Exactly. So, which, uh, was, um, mainly done to reduce the burden of paperwork.
Kasie Whitener (17:54):
Sure.
Orgul Ozturk (17:54):
Uh, especially in schools where it was already for most
Kasie Whitener (17:58):
75, 80%. Yeah.
Orgul Ozturk (17:59):
But, um, when adopted, uh, in schools when, where there is not, uh, a lot of, uh, students who were already eligible for free lunch, that is where we see the biggest impact.
Kasie Whitener (18:10):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (18:11):
It was what our earlier, uh, papers showed, um, to kind of understand what the impact is at the national level. I collaborated with a colleague who collected, um, at every state what the CEP, uh, not only eligibility, but participation status of schools were. So she had this data gathered for many years, painstakingly going through, uh, government, uh, websites and data.
Kasie Whitener (18:38):
Yeah. Nobody envies that.
Orgul Ozturk (18:40):
Kasie Whitener (18:40):
Nobody envies your colleague diving through all those government websites.
Orgul Ozturk (18:45):
She's a, she's a junior faculty member, so at Georgetown University and that, you know. Yeah. But she's been doing this for a long time in this whole, um, nutrition policies, uh, school lunch policies, uh, kind of area. So, um, she had the data, I didn't wanna do it again. So I approached to her, I said, why don't we do it this way? And I, uh, made the connection between, um, three of us. The third person being another colleague I worked previously together, uh, looking at the food banks and demand for their, uh, services is what we study here in relationship to the free school lunches. Okay. So earlier, uh, Pelin Pekgun, she's in Wake Forest right now. Uh, her and I, she was a Darla Moore, uh, faculty as well. Uh, we worked on, uh, along with a couple other colleagues of ours, um, how a workforce, uh, composition of, uh, food banks affect their reach,
Kasie Whitener (19:40):
Sure.
Orgul Ozturk (19:41):
How well they function. So, um, I, they had the excessive Feeding America data, and we had the school lunch, um, program status. We put them all together and try to understand if the effect of CP is going beyond just the student who's receiving the lunch, but to their, you know, families. Right. Is it affecting at the end, this is any kind transfer to the family? Is it affecting families, welfare overall, their need for food?
Kasie Whitener (20:11):
So we're thinking about, uh, the, the overall sort of social picture here. It's about being food insecure and whether or not a family that is food insecure and children that are therefore also food insecure, whether or not that those have negative academic impacts, negative impact on their performance in school.
Orgul Ozturk (20:29):
So, that was the earlier papers we wrote. And we do find when you have, um, so when you have access to these free lunches, especially if you are not a, what we consider a poor student,
Kasie Whitener (20:41):
Sure.
Orgul Ozturk (20:41):
Uh, or, um, schools where there is, um, not that many poor students, students, that is where we were uh, showing the biggest impact on math and ELA scores.
Kasie Whitener (20:52):
Math and ELA scores were higher in schools where every student was given free lunch.
Orgul Ozturk (20:58):
As for students, again, they're, uh, we are doing it so that we can causally interpret these results. Right. Uh, students were compared to themselves. Okay. Before this was adopted. So we are thinking about the value added of this program, and, uh, we looked at it by, uh, so you are in a school not, um, eligible necessarily, uh, but receiving it through the district.
Kasie Whitener (21:21):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (21:21):
Because districts can adopt it.
Kasie Whitener (21:22):
Okay.
Kasie Whitener (21:22):
And that was the biggest impacts.
Kasie Whitener (21:24):
The biggest impacts. Okay. We are gonna unpack this just a little bit on the other side, and then we're gonna get to the second paper as well. New knowledge coming your way on Moore impact. We'll be right back.
Kasie Whitener (21:48):
Welcome back to Moore Impact Kasey Whitener here with Dr. Orgul Ozturk. We're talking about school lunches, free and reduced lunches. The idea that districts are adopting this district-wide policy to give lunch to all kids that come to the school and not deal with the headache of the administrative. You qualify, but you don't. And that there is a positive, net positive impact on schools, specifically those schools where they would not have otherwise qualified for free and reduced lunch. And yet, once that free and reduced lunch is made available, everybody does better. Everybody that's this kind of rising tide, uh, scenario. So this was the old research, the new research. The thing that has just now been published is making use of the food bank information and making use of the school lunch information to create new knowledge. Tell us about this paper.
Orgul Ozturk (22:32):
So, um, in that paper, um, we are looking at the question nationally. Uh, so we know for every school if they are a CEP school or not, and when they become a CEP school, and that's community eligibility provision free lunch. Let's say it that way for now.
Kasie Whitener (22:49):
Say that one more time, like slowly and clearly so people can understand. C-E-P-C-E-P.
Orgul Ozturk (22:53):
It is community eligibility provision.
Kasie Whitener (22:56):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (22:56):
So, I'll just say free lunch program from now on.
Kasie Whitener (22:59):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (23:00):
Free food program. Um, so, uh, we are creating this, uh, basically share of students who qualify for free lunch for every county, because our food bank data is at the county level. We know, uh, there are 200, um, food banks in our data, which covers about 70% of all charitable, uh, food organizations in the nation. And we know their service areas. So we try to create this index that captures the share of students in this program within that service area.
Kasie Whitener (23:34):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (23:35):
So then what we did as this share changes, because more schools come in, uh, we looked at the change that implied on the demand for the food that, uh, uh, Feeding America is distributing at that local, um, food bank.
Kasie Whitener (23:51):
Okay. So the food bank data is at the county level. And you understand, based on that county level data, there are students that are coming in and out. Of course, students are gonna grow up, they're gonna graduate and that sort of thing. Families are gonna move in, families are gonna move out. And so now kind of comparing and contrasting, or pulling these things together based on what our school data is telling us, and based on what the county food bank is telling us, what is the real need? What is the real impact here?
Orgul Ozturk (24:14):
Exactly. So, um, and what we find is, um, we find in areas what we consider as, uh, low poverty areas, when the share of the students who are, uh, receiving free lunches increases, we see a reduction in the food bank, food bank usage.
Kasie Whitener (24:33):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (24:33):
So it reduces the burden on the, uh, demand, uh, for, uh, burden for the charitable organization, the Feeding America in this case, again, it's not only just the food bank location, but all the ways that they're serving the food, there is more, um, uh, there is less unmet need.
Kasie Whitener (24:52):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (24:52):
Be concluded. Uh, when you provide free lunches, these families do not need to rely on further charitable organizations to, uh, meet those food needs. They have food insecurity, they have, right, is reduced.
Kasie Whitener (25:05):
Right. Which enables the, uh, the food banks to focus on populations that are maybe not families with children, uh, but families, elderly families and things like that, where they don't necessarily have the, the need to feed young people.
Orgul Ozturk (25:18):
And we weren't seeing any reduction in the high poverty areas on the need. And, uh, you know, it's well known in the literature with our research that these programs help, but they do not meet all the food needs of a lot of families. Right. And so they can concentrate on those populations, more vulnerable populations, um, with these excess resources they may have.
Kasie Whitener (25:41):
Good. Yeah. And thinking about these, the higher poverty areas where the food bank distribution could now be ramped up a little bit more because those lower poverty areas are not using the food bank quite as much.
Orgul Ozturk (25:52):
Exactly. And, um, we were not seeing any reduction in the use of food banks, uh, in these high poverty areas.
Kasie Whitener (25:58):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (25:59):
Because status quo is not changing for those, uh, students.
Kasie Whitener (26:02):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (26:02):
They were already receiving feed, uh, uh, free lunches. It was not under CEP, it was just a national lunch program.
Kasie Whitener (26:09):
Is there an, uh, a, an expense associated with this? Like when we see a district like Richland District one that went from, um, offering it only to eligible schools and only to eligible families to like, we're gonna give it to everybody. What's that expense associated with that? I mean, is there a, do you consider there to be like some kind of payoff here, an ROI that is an acceptable ROI for the community to bear knowing that there's gonna be some, uh, higher expense associated with feeding all these children?
Orgul Ozturk (26:36):
Sure. I mean, um, depends on the, uh, ratio of the freeze, uh, lunch eligible students, uh, in the school. Uh, but the, there is an expense, especially if you are a low poverty school, uh, the what you need to pay per student.
Kasie Whitener (26:51):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (26:52):
Uh, is there, but you have on the savings side, you are not doing the paperwork. You are not making everybody fill out these forms. And it is not only the cost to the school or cost to the district, it is cost to the families too. Um, and a lot of people do not, um, always have the ability to, um, you know, navigate the system.
Kasie Whitener (27:12):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (27:12):
And even when they're eligible, they may not be able to get the food that they're eligible for. Um, I mean, on the net, it may look like a costlier than statistical like program.
Kasie Whitener (27:24):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (27:25):
But when you think about the societal benefits that you are creating, uh, it is overall a good investment. And we are also saving, uh, charitable organizations money.
Kasie Whitener (27:35):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (27:35):
And so, uh, that is, some of it is recouped by the society through the reduction on the, uh, burden to the business. I mean, it's not a business, but this nonprofits,
Kasie Whitener (27:44):
Right. And when we think about those students that maybe their parents never did apply, they never, and they still were going without food. Right? Uh, but now that that gap is closed, so there's that advantage, and then we think about the administrative cost of having to operate, you know, all the different you are, you're not, you are, you're not stuff Right. That's taken away. Um, so yeah, from a, from a reduction of overall expenses and then just shifting that instead to buying more apples, buying more bananas, you know, buying more, um, tater tots to make sure the kids are actually being fed. So putting that money really where in the action, uh, you know, category as opposed to the overhead category.
Orgul Ozturk (28:19):
Yeah. I mean, you're not hiring someone for $80,000 to oversee if every paperwork is, you know, done, filled. All the i's are dot t's are crossed, whatever.
Kasie Whitener (28:27):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (28:27):
You are instead giving that $8,000 in a different way.
Orgul Ozturk (28:31):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (28:31):
I mean, for me, that plot is gone. It is good for the society, more efficient way of, uh, meeting the need, but also, um, uh, there, there's a lot of other issues that feed into a failure of some of the existing programs as a lot of these very vulnerable populations aren't also stable housing wise. So, and when you are moving, when your location changes, a lot of these programs require you to re
Kasie Whitener (28:55):
Reapply,
Orgul Ozturk (28:55):
Certify, reapply. Right. Which then puts a lot of kids in a very precarious situation in terms of their access to food.
Kasie Whitener (29:02):
Right. Because that, uh, eligibility doesn't necessarily follow them around wherever they go to school. It's every single time they get re-enrolled, they've got to reapply. But if you've got this blanket thing that says, look, everybody's gonna get food. We don't, you don't have to prove that you need it. If you want it here, it, it's available for you. And that doesn't take away the choice of families that want to send their kids with a pre-made lunch.
Orgul Ozturk (29:22):
Yeah, of course.
Kasie Whitener (29:22):
I have made Holly's lunch every day for 12 years of school, like, uh, because she's a picky eater. Right. So that doesn't take that away. You still have the option to send your kid with whatever they want to eat. Uh, but any, any kid that shows up and is hungry, they're gonna be fed and, and it improves those academic outcomes.
Orgul Ozturk (29:37):
Exactly. And they are not going to be, not only fed, but they're not going to be stigmatized. Um, you know, if they are the ones, uh, who are that free lunch kid in a school full of non-free lunch kids.
Kasie Whitener (29:49):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (29:49):
I think that was the reason that we were seeing the biggest impact in those kind of schools. Uh, they're not one a minority in the big group.
Kasie Whitener (29:57):
Right. 'cause everybody's getting it. So everybody has access.
Orgul Ozturk (30:00):
And actually, this is you talking about Holly, you know, when our kids started school, when we realized, uh, how is the lunch going to work? And realized that we don't have to because our school was a CEP school. That's when we started thinking about this. So, uh, program was, um, made, I mean, we were made aware of the program at that time, and our research interest was peaked at that time.
Kasie Whitener (30:24):
I imagine so
Orgul Ozturk (30:32):
Thank you.
Kasie Whitener (30:32):
Accepted for publication. Um, going to be available for students to look at when?
Orgul Ozturk (30:37):
Uh, I mean, they can look anytime. And we have a, a policy brief and that I just prepared, it's gonna come out as Epic Policy Brief in October.
Kasie Whitener (30:45):
Excellent. So Epic is the Economic Policy Center. Yes. And we added the little I there, but Economic Policy Center out of the Darla Moore School of Business, uh, these policy briefs are valuable. They provide, I think, not just for our legislators, but also for our community, an understanding of what these programs do, what the impact really is, and then give them a chance to decide, do we wanna continue and invest in them? Should we vote for them? Should we vote, you know, against them in that sort of thing. So it's really valuable stuff. Um, let's talk about the second paper.
Orgul Ozturk (31:15):
All right. So that paper is, uh, from another, uh, area that I, uh, research. It is more of a health paper and a health economics paper. And we are looking at this baby friendly hospital designation, and if it is making any, uh, changes in the behaviors that is targeted to, you know, change. Okay.
Kasie Whitener (31:36):
So a baby friendly hospital designation.
Orgul Ozturk (31:39):
Yes.
Kasie Whitener (31:39):
Is this, who gives this designation?
Orgul Ozturk (31:41):
There's a national organization that gives a designation.
Kasie Whitener (31:44):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (31:44):
And hospitals have to check about 10 items.
Orgul Ozturk (31:47):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (31:47):
Uh, in terms of how they are, um, doing the, you know, maternal care, the infant care, uh, just following the birth.
Orgul Ozturk (31:55):
Sure.
Orgul Ozturk (31:56):
Uh, and the main purpose of the program, and it's a worldwide program. Uh, is to increase breastfeeding. Um, and actually our initial interest to this program was, um, driven by my interest in understanding the link between baby outcomes and later life outcomes of kids and their breastfeeding.
Kasie Whitener (32:16):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (32:17):
So there's a lot of, like we say, oh, breastfeeding is the best, but there's really,
Kasie Whitener (32:21):
There's a lot of claims. Yeah.
Orgul Ozturk (32:22):
Claims, but there's no real research.
Kasie Whitener (32:23):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (32:23):
That backs it. And it's hard to do research.
Kasie Whitener (32:25):
There's a lot of anecdotal, like, you know, Hey, you know, our two kids play together, your kid's a jerk and, you know, he probably was formula fed or whatever. You see what I'm saying? Like, there's a lot of sort of like anecdotal stuff there, but that's not real science.
Orgul Ozturk (32:36):
No. No.
Kasie Whitener (32:36):
Okay. So trying to figure out, is this real.
Orgul Ozturk (32:38):
And it is hard to do the science. You're not going to intentionally not breastfeed one kid and the other.
Kasie Whitener (32:44):
Right. Of course. Of course.
Orgul Ozturk (32:45):
So these are the things I think our economics training comes in handy, and we try to find ways that something else outside, uh, without any control of the individuals changes, uh, the behavior. And through which we can, you know, understand if there is an impact. Because at that point, if that outside factor is truly out of your control, it, and we try to make sure that it can be treated.
Kasie Whitener (33:10):
Sure.
Orgul Ozturk (33:10):
So it can be like a coin to, it can be like that lottery.
Kasie Whitener (33:13):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (33:14):
So we are trying to get at that random trial control kind of set up where most of our, um, heart sciences work with without that luxury.
Kasie Whitener (33:23):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (33:23):
And with the administrative data
Kasie Whitener (33:25):
Without denying certain babies' breast milk.
Orgul Ozturk (33:27):
I mean, most of my research, I cannot not feed.
Kasie Whitener (33:30):
Right. Right.
Orgul Ozturk (33:31):
Or you cannot just like, uh, you are gonna be unemployed forever.
Kasie Whitener (33:35):
Most of your research has to just go what actually happened, and let's take a look at the outcomes.
Orgul Ozturk (33:39):
And we try to kind of, um, utilize, like in these, uh, CEP papers, we are trying to look at the changes over time in same student or eligibility cutoffs, like 40% versus not, and make use of that natural experiment.
Kasie Whitener (33:52):
Good. Alright. We're gonna go into the details of this hospital certification research that you've done on paper number two, uh, Orguland Kasie here on Moore Impact. Don't Go Away.
Kasie Whitener (34:10):
Welcome back to Moore Impact Kasie and Orgul here we're talking through the second paper, which is related to certification, baby friendly hospital, and, uh, the idea that the certification is being promoted by an organization that's trying to improve the breastfeeding, the numbers of breastfeeding mothers in these hospitals. So let's talk a little bit about this paper and, and the setup and the data and what you guys were trying to uncover.
Orgul Ozturk (34:33):
Yeah. Um, for a long time now, since I breastfed my kids, uh, and stopped early and got my mother's scorn,
Kasie Whitener (34:45):
I stopped early too. There was no scorn from my mom though. My mom was just like, girl, you're good. It's fine.
Orgul Ozturk (34:51):
Um, I mean, as soon as they had teeth, I was like, I'm done. Eight months and it was good. But I will, I've been wanting to understand, um, because there's a lot of pressure on women who wanna, you know, who are, uh, not breastfeeding.
Kasie Whitener (35:05):
Right. There's A lot of pressure on expectant mothers to be breastfeeding moms when those babies are born. And the pressure begins the minute you find out you're pregnant. And it's all through your gynecological visits. It's in the Lamaze classes, it's everywhere. It is like persistent and consistent, and those lactation consultants are in the room the minute that baby is born talking to you about whether or not that's the choice you're planning to make.
Orgul Ozturk (35:27):
Yeah. And I'm not trying to downplay the importance of breastfeeding because it is a nice way to connect with your baby, but not everybody can and not everybody wants to. I mean, so, um, but I really wanted to understand, is it really, I mean, you're telling me all these, but where is the science? I really want to understand that connection. If there is any between, um, the cognitive outcomes of the health outcomes of the kid and their breastfeeding. So, um, our, we've been, because of the, uh, inability to not breastfeed some kids and breastfeed others, though, we at some point, uh, submitted an NIH grant for this. Measuring the breastfeeding content through the stool of the baby.
Kasie Whitener (36:07):
Wow.
Orgul Ozturk (36:07):
It wasn't funded. Um, so we were gonna collect it baby poop.
Kasie Whitener (36:10):
That sounds terrible. That whole, like what are economists doing in that world?
Orgul Ozturk (36:16):
This was a public, public health in a case, and I was the economist to do the analysis. But, uh, regardless, this is a little, um, easier way of doing this research.
Kasie Whitener (36:25):
This does sound, let's, let's go the easier way.
Orgul Ozturk (36:27):
So since there is a program out there which designates, I mean, you know, some hospitals, uh, designate themselves as baby friendly and some others, and you are say an expectant mother in a county where your only option is a baby friendly hospital, and you are going to go to the hospital that is closest to you most of the time. So that is, that was the variation in the treatment, treatment being exposure to the program. Um, that we were utilizing in this study. So, so we try to understand basically if, uh, you were, um, if you were more exposed to a baby-friendly hospital, uh, our first question was, are you breastfeeding more? 'cause if we can establish that first stage, then we can try to understand, because of this outside variation, um, did your kids fare better in their health outcomes because they were breastfed more?
Kasie Whitener (37:19):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (37:19):
So, um, that was our initial goal didn't work out. We saw no real effect on average on breastfeeding.
Kasie Whitener (37:26):
Okay. In terms of the kids' cognitive health behavior, you know?
Orgul Ozturk (37:31):
No, no. Ignore that part. Just that first behavior that it was trying to affect.
Kasie Whitener (37:35):
There aren't more moms breastfeeding just because it's a, just because it's a, um, a baby friendly hospital.
Orgul Ozturk (37:41):
Exactly. Exactly. So that, and we try to say, Hey, what about, maybe it's not happening, but, um, maybe different composition is breastfeeding, so let's look at the, um, cognitive, uh, the health outcomes were the only things that we could at that point analyze. Um, we don't really see anything.
Kasie Whitener (37:57):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (37:57):
Happening there either. So, uh, but, um, I'm not gonna say it is totally useless for a small group and for traditionally not, um, breastfeeding enough group, uh, African American mothers, there was actually a marginal change.
Kasie Whitener (38:12):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (38:12):
Especially for women who didn't breastfeed their first kid, but then gave birth for their second kid in a non baby-friendly, uh, in a baby-friendly hospital. If they were exposed for their second babies, they did breastfeed the, uh, second baby, uh, more okay than otherwise.
Kasie Whitener (38:28):
So it worked in populations that had not typically adopted breastfeeding, either with their first child or because ethnically or, uh, socially that just wasn't part of their culture.
Orgul Ozturk (38:37):
Yeah. And that is great because that is the population. You are not going to move the needle much when somebody's already, you know, doing more of it.
Kasie Whitener (38:43):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (38:43):
So I think it shows that it's not totally, um, you know, pointless the program.
Kasie Whitener (38:48):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (38:49):
Um, but we are working on a different paper now. Uh, I mean, I should say in this very first paper, we also look at some trauma and malnutrition because those are the immediate, uh, health outcomes you can see, i, I shouldn't say is a blanket term, but nutrition related and trauma related, um, outcomes. And we see some, um, patterns and that may be indicate of the burdens this program is putting on the mother.
Kasie Whitener (39:13):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (39:14):
Uh, some slight increase in certain traumas, uh, opponents of the program highlight the fact that giving the mother the baby immediately in rooming the baby with the mother immediately is asking too much from the mothers of newborns.
Kasie Whitener (39:28):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (39:28):
Uh, you know, sleepless nights, you know, you don't know how to deal with a baby maybe and dropping baby, uh, or just small accidents happening to baby.
Kasie Whitener (39:37):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (39:38):
Um, has been highlighted as reasons to avoid in rooming babies.
Kasie Whitener (39:42):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (39:43):
But of course, the program has a lot of other components, even when you are not baby friendly designated.
Kasie Whitener (39:48):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (39:48):
You may be still doing a lot of the education lactation consultant and helping the mothers. But, and anything we found in this paper was not positive per se.
Kasie Whitener (39:59):
Right. Right.
Orgul Ozturk (39:59):
So then we started seeing patterns, which is the workings of the second, uh, paper. Uh, women are actually, if they can, moving away from these hospitals.
Kasie Whitener (40:08):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (40:09):
People are going to a non baby friendly hospital if they have privately insured, for example.
Kasie Whitener (40:14):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (40:14):
Which is changing the, uh, customer base of the hospital, which can be quite concerning for them.
Kasie Whitener (40:19):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (40:20):
And also they're not giving births as much, women aren't.
Kasie Whitener (40:24):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (40:24):
And vanishing babies and they are timing the births, uh, longer.
Kasie Whitener (40:28):
Right. Further apart.
Orgul Ozturk (40:29):
Yeah.
Kasie Whitener (40:30):
And, and we've, we're seeing that from a population perspective anyway, that women are waiting longer. I mean, even when I had my daughter at like, I think I was 29 when she was born, so I mean, people are waiting longer in general.
Orgul Ozturk (40:40):
But, this is, again, we are looking at a cohort.
Kasie Whitener (40:42):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (40:43):
It is not just like different times, um, that we are comparing to each other. This is at the same time. And if we are, we are worried about declining population, declining birth rates. Right? If that is the type of thing we are observing, maybe this is not the type of program that we should be adopting.
Kasie Whitener (41:00):
Right. And that- wow. Okay. So much, so much new knowledge. So many questions and so many thoughts, uh, around whether or not we implement certain programs. How do, what is the impact that program has, even just on our social norms and our social values. Um, just incredibly incredible work
Orgul Ozturk (41:28):
Yeah. I mean, it's curse and a blessing
Kasie Whitener (41:35):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (41:35):
It ends up in a, in a research agenda of 10 papers at a given time. I, I, I mean, I love my job. I love that my training enables me to look at, uh, big, uh, you know, a lot of data.
Kasie Whitener (41:47):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (41:47):
And make sense of it. And that natural experiments that I was telling you that weird rules about a policy, a program, the thresholds that for no reason exist.
Kasie Whitener (41:56):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (41:57):
And understanding how they can create these experiments for us. I mean, I love it.
Kasie Whitener (42:02):
Well, and I like too though that what a lot of what you all are able to do is say, what are the unintended consequences here? Because the vision for the free and reduced lunch was to help a specific population of people, which is families that can't afford to send their kid to school for lunch with lunch, or to pay for the school lunch. And yet what we find is providing food and making it easily accessible has benefits for everybody. Whether you can afford to feed your kid or not. Um, and then on top of that, it has benefits for the whole family because that's less that the family has to worry about investing, you know, and, and, um, getting from the food bank and things like that.
Orgul Ozturk (42:35):
And society at large because it reduces the burden on the charitable organization. 'Cause they have, then they can reorient their services target better to the even, you know, the most vulnerable.
Kasie Whitener (42:46):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (42:46):
And be on the ready and have the resources available when, uh, like COVID-19 when it hit, there was a, this huge increase in the demand for food banks.
Kasie Whitener (42:55):
This is, uh, one of the biggest programs at South Carolina is a beneficiary of, from a federal government perspective. So it's incredibly relevant to what's happening in South Carolina and the way we interact with our federal government. I just think it's really valuable research for people to know how, how impactful it is.
Orgul Ozturk (43:11):
And the other side is like reducing that administrative burden.
Kasie Whitener (43:14):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (43:14):
I think, um, that is also an extremely important part of this program, which is not going to always factor into the calculations that we do in terms of return to dollar invested.
Kasie Whitener (43:25):
Right, of course. A lot of times we have ideas for programs and we don't think about who's gonna run the program.
Orgul Ozturk (43:31):
Yeah.
Kasie Whitener (43:31):
Which adds an additional maybe 50 to 75% cost to the program itself.Alright. The really valuable stuff. Okay. So we've got this upcoming one, which is about, you know, hey, why are these moms moving away from hospitals that are supposedly baby friendly? Just a guess. Maybe they're not mom friendly. Um, but there's a,
Orgul Ozturk (43:47):
Yes. I mean, that is actually like I, this is baby friendly, but mom unfriendly.
Kasie Whitener (43:50):
Yeah.
Orgul Ozturk (43:51):
And the title of the second paper is gonna be Vanishing Babies.
Kasie Whitener (43:53):
Vanishing Babies. Yeah. And this, the idea there is an economic incentive for these hospitals to understand does the certification help them or is it hurting them as far as their customer base is concerned? So I think that's gonna be really interesting stuff.
Orgul Ozturk (44:06):
I mean, it's not, you know, uh, removed yet.
Kasie Whitener (44:09):
Right.
Orgul Ozturk (44:09):
So I don't wanna say too much about it, but we are gonna release the first paper that is, uh, accepted at Management Science, uh, soon as a, um, policy brief as well.
Kasie Whitener (44:18):
Policy brief, and then help our South Carolina legislators and our South Carolina voters make good decisions about whether or not we should invest in these programs or not. Alright. EPIC. A new semester for the policy center. So are do you all have any events coming up?
Orgul Ozturk (44:33):
Yeah, we do have a conference coming up. It's Cradle to Career.
Kasie Whitener (44:37):
Okay.
Orgul Ozturk (44:38):
And this is, uh, building on our main mission workforce development in South Carolina, uh, in a very holistic way, you know, uh, early childhood to K through 12 policies and programs, and then college and career outcomes. It is, um, um, one day program, one day, uh, academic conference, but we are gonna have policy makers in the room. We are gonna have key notes by Department of Education and Department of Employment and Workforce. And we are going to have round tables at the end of the day where our, um, policy makers are gonna be talking with the academics and we are gonna brainstorm to understand what are the pressing, most pressing issues in our state, and how can we, you know, contribute to solutions? What can we do?
Kasie Whitener (45:19):
Just, it's really important work and it really matters. And I'm grateful to you for doing it and I'm so glad to see you and I'm glad you had a wonderful summer and then you're back here on campus. Yes.
Orgul Ozturk (45:27):
It can be hard to come back, but I'm glad to be back.
Kasie Whitener (45:32):
This has been Moore Impact. When you learn more, you know more, when you know more, you do more. Thanks for listening.