Since August 2020, Children’s National Hospital—through its Child Health Advocacy Institute (CHAI)—has proudly hosted students from the Atlantis Fellowship program. This year marks the fifth consecutive year of the partnership. Over the course of three weeks, twelve undergraduate fellows were introduced to the powerful role data can play in improving child health. With mentorship from the CHAI team, students explored the Child Opportunity Index (COI) as a lens for understanding differences in neighborhood-level conditions in Washington, D.C., focusing specifically on health insurance coverage and employment rates. In just a few weeks, the students pulled together impressive research papers – we’ll be posting summaries of their research projects. This is post number one in the series.

---

Jobs, Neighborhoods, and Kids’ Health:
Exploring the Link Between Employment and Child Opportunity in Washington, D.C.

Summary of Research by Avani Shah, Lujain Alqasmi & Gregory Brown

In the waiting room of the Children’s National Hospital ER, a young boy wheezes loudly. It’s his third visit this month. His mother, seated beside him, anxiously checks her phone to see if she’s heard back from any job applications—especially the one with the local government. The restaurant where she worked recently closed, and with it went her paycheck and health benefits. The weight of job instability, mounting bills, and uncertainty hangs heavily over both mother and child.

Stories like this are far too common—and they highlight how deeply employment, neighborhood conditions, and children’s health are connected. Inspired by this reality, a student team spent three weeks at Children’s National Hospital examining how the type of employment available across neighborhoods in Washington, D.C.—specifically public vs. private sector jobs—might relate to child opportunity.

The project was part of a summer fellowship that introduced students to the intersection of data, policy, and health. Over the course of the program, the team saw firsthand how neighborhood-level data can be used to uncover patterns that affect families’ well-being. For many, it was a transformative experience—one that revealed the power of data not just as numbers on a screen, but as a tool for understanding and improving lives.

To guide their exploration, the team used the Child Opportunity Index (COI), a national tool that captures neighborhood conditions affecting children’s healthy development. The COI includes 44 indicators across education, environment, and economic factors, providing a neighborhood-level snapshot of opportunity. Developed by Diversity Data Kids and Brandeis University, the index is widely used to help communities identify opportunity gaps and inform solutions.

Alongside the COI, the team drew on employment data from the U.S. Census Bureau, looking at where public and private sector jobs are concentrated across D.C.’s neighborhoods. Public sector jobs—such as those in government—often provide more stability and benefits, while private sector roles vary widely in compensation and security.

Washington, D.C., with its unique mix of federal jobs and significant neighborhood differences, served as a rich setting for this analysis. The students mapped employment patterns and compared them to neighborhood COI scores, raising important questions about how employment structures may influence a child’s environment and access to opportunity.

After completing their initial analysis, the students are now working to verify and refine their findings with support from faculty and researchers at Children’s National. Their goal is to publish the results and disseminate them more broadly, helping to inform future workforce development strategies in Washington, D.C. and beyond.

Rather than aiming to reach definitive conclusions, the project offered a starting point for deeper conversations about the connections between work, place, and health. It showed how seemingly separate issues—like job availability and childhood well-being—are, in fact, tightly linked.

This experience highlighted for the students just how powerful data can be in advancing the health of communities. It opened their eyes to how public health is shaped not only inside clinics and hospitals but in the policies, job markets, and living conditions that surround families every day.

As public health experts often note, a child’s zip code can be more predictive of their health than their genetic code. By better understanding how neighborhood conditions shape opportunity, efforts to support children’s health can be more targeted, more informed, and more impactful.

At Children’s National, the hope is that every child can grow up in a community that supports their health, well-being, and potential. This project is one small step in understanding how to get there.