Strengthening Integration of Health Services and Systems

In January 2020, the Supreme Court allowed the Department of Homeland Security to implement a new rule regarding the definition of “public charge.”  Our team is collecting primary data from two distinct populations to explore awareness of the public charge rule, sources of information about the rule, and how the rule may affect decisions on obtaining medical care and participating in public programs.

Combining claims data and income eligibility information for low-income adults in Colorado, the research team will investigate the differences in health care utilization, quality, and costs among low-income adults enrolled in Medicaid versus subsidized Marketplace coverage.

Childhood vaccines play a major role in minimizing the incidence of vaccine-preventable disease. While all states accommodate medical vaccine exemptions, certain states also allow for waivers on the basis of religious or philosophical objections.

“Pay for Success” is a public/private partnership approach to financing proven prevention interventions that help the public sector save money or achieve greater value for an investment. This project will explore the potential for and best practices by which Pay for Success initiatives (also known as social impact bonds) can address the social determinants of health and reduce public expenditures on health/social services.

Federal housing assistance benefits 11 million people through three main programs: public housing, project-based Section 8 housing, and housing choice vouchers. Researchers use multiple datasets to examine the effects of federal housing assistance programs on food security, health-promoting behaviors, and health outcomes.

The “Health in All Policies” (HiAP) strategy works to integrate health and equity considerations into the design and evaluation of policies and services. This project involves a data-driven investigation of local/state HiAP activities. The researchers will design and implement a national HiAP surveillance system and conduct a multiple-site case study of 10 HiAP efforts at different stages.

While transportation planning has not traditionally been linked to health, it affects health in various ways. This project will analyze policies around transportation-associated access to health care, develop a transportation-related project to reduce injuries and mortality, assess the affects that access to cycling has on health, and develop measures of transportation-sensitive health conditions.

This series of case studies identifies and describes several emerging and promising interventions that sit at the intersection of housing and health across the country. Interventions reflect a variety of approaches and models from a diversity of communities and will span both the public and private sectors.

This project investigates efforts in Michigan to address the needs of the “super-utilizer” population — individuals with serious health care and social needs who account for the majority of public health care expenditures in the United States. While there has been a growing number of interventions aimed this population, the existing evidence regarding impact is limited. The research is examining existing and potential policies that address the needs of super-utilizers while decreasing avoidable ED utilization and hospitalizations, and reducing health care costs.

This study will examine how social spending and Medicaid policies influence child health and development. Analysis will be based on NSCH data matched by birth cohort and state to historical government spending data from the Census of Governments. Multivariate analysis will be used to examine the impacts of state spending by developmental phase on health.

This study examines state level regulations that are being used to promote access to care for primary care services and prescription drugs in private insurance plans. Data are being drawn from a regulatory review of all 50 states and a more in-depth review of activities in six states.