How do we build back from a global pandemic? How do we answer for 400 years of racial injustice? How do we fight climate change, and prepare for the impacts we can no longer avoid?

At RAND, those questions fall to Anita Chandra and her research teams. As vice president and director of RAND Social and Economic Well-Being, she manages a research portfolio that ranges from community health and environmental policy to policing, drug policy, and civil justice. When RAND launched its Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy last year, it found a natural home in her research division.

Chandra's interests as a researcher are almost as varied. She has worked with local governments and nonprofit foundations to build community well-being and to evaluate the programs and policies needed to sustain it. Her research has explored how stress builds up in communities; how cities can make themselves more resilient; what children and their families need to thrive; and what it will take to create a “culture of health” in America.

Q: What are some less-obvious social trends that you think will shape the next few years?

How we seek, define, and build community—that's really driving a lot of the major policy issues we're grappling with now. On the positive side, it's forcing conversations that we have papered over for far too long: How we think about racial and social equity, how we should take care of seniors and children. But some of that conversation has also, obviously, led people down a more divisive road. We have to address that now and think about how we design our communities, how we create social interaction and foster social connection, how we disrupt social isolation.

Read the full article about helping communities progress at RAND Corporation.