When patients seek medical care from their primary care provider, they may not consider the 6-week wait time until their appointment. Across the United States, policymakers are concerned that the supply of physicians is not enough to meet the nationwide demand for care. Many regions do not have enough primary care providers to meet the… Read more »
Tag: health policy
The Racial Divide in Accessing Prenatal Care: Why White and Black Mothers Face Different Premature Birth Risks
Black women are three times more likely to have a pregnancy-related death, compared to White women, and infants born to Black women are over twice as likely to die in their first year of life, relative to those born to White women. One contributing factor to those statistics can be attributed to a mother receiving… Read more »
From the Pulpit to the Womb: The Role of Clergy in Abortion Discussions
In the wake of the recent Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and the subsequent rise of the Evangelical pro-life movement, I sought to answer just how influential clergy members are. I hoped that researching abortion attitudes of clergy members could reveal how these individuals balance their personal experiences and opinions, and their… Read more »
Examining the Impact of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency on Maternal Mental Health in ACA Expansion and Non-Expansion States
One in five pregnant women experience poor mental health, negatively impacting both the mother and child during pregnancy and after childbirth. In March 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress declared a Public Health Emergency (PHE) and imposed a continuous coverage requirement, which stopped state Medicaid programs from unenrolling people from the Medicaid program… Read more »
Expanding Medicaid’s Mental Health Care: State Waivers Appear to Have Different Effects
State waivers aimed at expanding mental health care for Medicaid beneficiaries have been largely successful in doing so. However, my research finds that state waivers aimed at removing the Institutions for Mental Diseases Exclusion appear to have different effects by state. Mental illnesses are more prevalent among Medicaid enrollees, so it is important that Medicaid… Read more »
Hospitals Kill People?! Working Kills People?!
Introduction The United States has a unique health landscape where healthcare spending accounts for 19.7% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, but this high spending does not equate to improved outcomes, quality, or access, especially in rural parts of the country. One of the most common sources of medical services is from primary care physicians,… Read more »