Boston College · PsychologyHousing and Health Equity Lab
Rebekah Levine Coley · Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Research Focus
Dr. Rebekah Levine Coley's research lab at Boston College focuses on understanding how housing quality and community redevelopment affect the health of public housing residents. Through a natural experimental design, they analyze the impact of moving families into mixed-income environments and improving housing standards on physical and mental health outcomes. The ultimate goal is to inform housing policies that can reduce health disparities in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
public housinghealth disparitieshousing redevelopmentmixed-income communitiessocial determinants of healthcommunity healthqualitative researchurban policy
Research Aims
5AIM 01Evaluate improvements in health outcomes for public housing residents after redevelopment.
AIM 02Assess the impact of mixed-income community design on resident well-being.
AIM 03Identify the social and environmental mechanisms influencing health changes.
AIM 04Compare health effects across different demographic groups within public housing.
AIM 05Inform urban policy to better address health disparities linked to housing conditions.
Skills the Lab Values
mixed-methods researchsurvey designdata analysisqualitative interviewsphysiological stress measurementgeographic information systems (GIS)longitudinal studiesstatistical modelingcommunity-based research
Output against the department
Publications194top 35% of dept.101st of 296
this lab
most publishedleast published
Citations8.8ktop 33% of dept.98th of 296
this lab
most citedleast cited
Career totals from OpenAlex, compared against labs that share a department. A department spans everything from one paper to tens of thousands, so bar heights are on a log scale — otherwise the largest lab would flatten every other bar to a line.