Projects

Title

Description

Lab Priority Areas  

Noncommunicable Disease (NCD) Policy Surveillance

PI: Sara Abiola with Miriam Laugesen

Advances understanding of the NCD prevention policy landscape in a sample of developed and developing countries by: constructing a country-level index for NCD prevention laws that aggregates existing law and policy data about tobacco, food, and alcohol regulations; exploring the relationship between the NCD prevention policy index and population health outcomes; exploring the mediating effects of legal and economic policy environment with focus on tech-related policy.

Responsiveness and sustainability, legal and regulatory frameworks, governance

Integrating Health and Social Services through New Payment Systems 

PI: Miriam Laugesen and Co-investigator Sara Abiola, and Mark Bittman. Funder: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (12/1/17-11/30/18).

The integration of health and social services presents a significant coordination and collective action problem. New mechanisms for reimbursing services are needed so that social service funding can operate within existing health services reimbursement systems, including, for example, dietitians, psychologists, and social workers. A critical component is the ability for funds to follow individuals who receive social services and for new incentive structures to be established.

Sustainability, legal and policy frameworks, reform roadmaps, high-performing professionals

Governance and Health Systems Performance

PI: Sara Abiola

Cross-national comparison of public attitudes about health services reform in a sample of twenty sub-Saharan African countries sheds light on how citizens form attitudes about health systems change and the importance of citizens‘ satisfaction when assessing health systems performance.

Responsiveness, governance  

The Price of Health Care: Why is the US an Outlier?

Tal Gross (Boston University) and Miriam Laugesen

Higher prices are increasingly recognized as a significant cause of the health care expenditure outlier status of the US. We evaluate—and mostly counter—potential explanations of why healthcare prices are higher in the US.

Sustainability

Fixing Medical Prices: International Payment Models

Funder: Department of Health Policy and Management.

PI: Miriam Laugesen. Co Investigators: Michael Gusmano (Rutgers), Lawrence Brown, Victor Rodwin (NYU). Laetitia Atlani-Duault (Paris)  

Accurate healthcare pricing of physician services is fundamental to creating the right incentives in a healthcare system. Comparison of fee-for-service reimbursement, alternative payment models, and the use of incentive payments in a selected number of high-income countries will evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of different payment methods. It also aims to identify strategies countries use to balance prices, utilization, and expenditure that are suitable for adoption in the US by private and public payers.

Sustainability,

governance, reform roadmaps

Regulation of mHealth Innovation

PI: Sara Abiola

mHealth is evolving at a rapid pace and is currently being used to improve access to healthcare, coordinate care, and reduce growth in healthcare spending across the globe. This project will explore the legal and regulatory environment in relation to mHealth innovation with emphasis on potential liability for tech developers and healthcare providers.

Responsiveness, legal and policy frameworks