Laura Samuel is an Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. Her interest in investigating income-based health disparities stems from both her experience helping families meet their basic needs as a primary care nurse practitioner and her childhood experience of financial strain. She now seeks to advance health equity for low-income individuals and families through two related streams of research. First, she has built a body of evidence demonstrating that financial strain contributes to aging-related health disparities and that housing conditions, such as disorder in the home, partly account for socioeconomic disparities. Second, she evaluates the health impact of programs and policies that are intended to improve economic well-being for low-income households. This research has shown that greater participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and higher benefit amounts are associated with improved health outcomes for low-income adults. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.