Written by Kim Furlow, communication programs manager, Institute for Public Health
Two Public Health Faculty Scholars, who are also collaborators with WashU’s Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research, have recently received honors and opportunities to help expand their research.
Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology and center collaborator, J. Gmerice Hammond, MD, MPH has received a Harold Amos Faculty Development Award for her project, “The Impact of the ACO REACH Program on Racial Inequities in Heart Failure.” The study examines whether a new Medicare payment program helps reduce gaps in care and outcomes for Black patients with heart failure.
“Race-based inequities in health are a public health crisis, and health care policy plays a critical role in addressing these issues,” Hammond said. “My work focuses on this. Implementing new payment models without assessing their impact on equity risks is worsening the problem they are intended to improve. My body of work will inform future efforts to improve, alter or scale the ACO REACH program and similar programs in a way that maximizes their contribution to eliminating racial inequities in cardiovascular outcomes.”
Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program (AMFDP) is a prestigious and competitive four-year career development award given to physicians, dentists, and nurses who are underrepresented in academic medicine and who demonstrate both the capacity to achieve senior rank in their field, and a commitment to the programs mission to encourage and foster the development of future classes.
Hammond added, “AMFDP has a track record of launching successful careers of academic leaders affecting real change in health equity and I intend to be part of that legacy.” She also commends the Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research at WashU as a valuable resource. “The center is a fertile, interdisciplinary space focused on health care policy that is unique across the WashU landscape. It has provided a space for me to exchange ideas with thought leaders in health policy that has greatly enriched my work.”
Morgan Shields, PhD, an assistant professor at WashU’s Brown School, whose research includes assessing the quality of mental health care, was invited to join other mental health care leaders across the U.S. for an exclusive training in Trieste, Italy. The city has been designated a global model for community mental health care by the World Health Organization.
Shields describes Trieste as a town nearly the size of Saint Louis that has been able to successfully deinstitutionalize people from psychiatric facilities. “Their approach to supporting people with mental health conditions is to provide care that is anchored around patients’ rights, autonomy, dignity, and ‘radical hospitality,’” said Shields.
In other words, the city’s approach to mental health care is unique – going above and beyond the norm. “Supporting people with mental health conditions in Trieste goes beyond medication and clinical treatments, but includes employment, housing, finding fulfillment in life, involving family and community members, being mindful of power imbalances, and broad integration into society.” Shields says she holds up Trieste as the “North Star” of examples and her visit will inspire her work in the U.S. “I hope to collaborate with people in Trieste, to produce evidence on the Trieste model and to explore implementation of its key components in the United States.”
Shields (as is Hammond) is a core faculty member of the Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research. Both researchers say there are tangible benefits for researchers in working closely with the center. “[It’s] a wonderful community of scholars to engage with and there is much diversity, but we are all united in our focus on health services and policy, which allows for interdisciplinary learning and growth,” Shields said.
Supported by the Institute for Public Health, the Institute for Clinical & Translational Sciences, and the Department of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, the center works to improve health outcomes and equity through health services and economics research and policy translation. Find out more about the center’s integral work at WashU, around the region and across the state of Missouri.