Research Seminar Series
2026-7 Research Seminar Series
All seminars are held on Wednesday from 11:45-12:45 pm in the 4th Floor Conference Room (440) unless otherwise noted. Questions? Email Josiah West.
2026 Fall Semester
September 16 - External speaker
Title: Improving Population Health Management and Health Equity in FQHCs in 2026
Abstract: Federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) play a crucial role caring for marginalized patients in the United States. This seminar will identify the challenges of improving population health management in FQHCs sustainably at scale, and share early lessons from a mixed methods evaluation of the California Population Health Management Initiative (PHMI). The PHMI is a learning collaborative that aims to improve population health management in 32 FQHCs and prepare them to succeed under evolving California Medicaid health care delivery and payment policies, exemplified by CalAIM and APM 2.0. We will also reflect on considerations advancing health equity in FQHCs and beyond in 2026.
Speaker: Marshall Chin (University of Chicago)
Host: Thalia Porteny
September 23
Title: Technology Infrastructure in the Healthcare Safety Net
Abstract: Health information technologies (HIT) have rapidly transformed modern healthcare systems, promising greater efficiency, improved outcomes, and enhanced patient engagement. In the safety net in particular, enhanced digital healthcare and technology solutions are perceived to be a primary strategy for improving health equity. However, enthusiasm regarding the promise of health technologies must be tempered by consideration of the operational realities of providing care in safety-net settings. Organizations that care for a greater proportion of lower-income patients with higher needs also adopt less comprehensive HIT. This limits their ability to harness the potential benefits of HIT for mitigating health disparities. In this brown bag, I will discuss the body of work I’m currently developing with Thalia Porteny around technology infrastructure in Federally Qualified Health Centers. I will discuss our ongoing qualitative study as well as some in-progress manuscripts and plans for future work.
Speaker: Sorcha Brophy
Host: Sorcha Brophy
September 30
Title: Neighborhoods and Child Mental Health Care Utilization in Medicaid
Abstract: Pediatric mental health conditions and use of pediatric mental health services have increased substantially in the US in the last two decades, with marked geographic variation in diagnosis and treatment even at the neighborhood level. Determining whether these differences simply reflect compositional differences in the children who live in a neighborhood or the influence of the neighborhood itself is essential for effective policy design. In this paper, we use a “movers” empirical design in national Medicaid data to test whether children’s mental health care utilization converges to look like mean utilization of their new neighborhood upon moving. We find that movers’ utilization converged toward their destination neighborhood’s mean utilization by 36% (95% CI: 0.32, 0.41) for outpatient therapy and 9% (95% CI: 0.07, 0.11) for psychotropic prescriptions. ZIP code-specific place effects for therapy utilization ranged from −0.82 to +1.14 visits/year (baseline mean 0.77) and for prescriptions from −0.81 to +1.05 fills/year (baseline mean 1.17). However, specific area-level characteristics like economic disadvantage and supply of providers only modestly correlated with the ZIP-specific associations, and future work will explore additional mechanisms driving the observed neighborhood effects. We conclude that neighborhoods do causally influence child mental health care use. However, person-specific factors still account for half (or more) of geographic variation in child mental health utilization. Policies to improve child mental health should consider the dual roles of local neighborhood contexts alongside individual risks, exposures, and preferences.
Speaker: Kacie Dragan
Host: Kacie Dragan
October 14
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Speaker: Mitchell Tang
Host: Mitchell Tang
October 21
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Speaker: TBA
Host: Jack Rowe
October 28
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Speaker: Kai Ruggeri
Host: Kai Ruggeri
November 11
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Speaker: Adam Sacarny
Host: Adam Sacarny
November 18
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Speaker: Catherine Ishitani
Host: Catherine Ishitani
December 9 - External speaker
Title: TBA
Abstract: Speaker: Margarita Estevez-Abe (Syracuse University)
Host: Nuannuan Xiang