Little is known about the extent to which the healthcare needs of autistic older adults with intellectual disability differ from autistic older adults without intellectual disability. We conducted a cross-sectional retrospective cohort study of Medicare claims data from 2016 to 2017 to compare the prevalence of physical and mental health…

Background: This study investigates how the Medicaid Expansion of the Affordable Care Act affected state high school dropout rates. Methods: This study relies on a differences-in-differences estimation strategy that is common in program evaluation, especially in education. This method replicates in a regression framework a classic pre-test…

Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine the roles of risk perceptions and efficacy beliefs play in predicting emerging adults' health insurance information seeking behavior based on the risk perception attitude (RPA) framework. In addition, the current study tests a role of worry to elucidate an underlying mechanism of their health…

Regional differences in ASD inpatient care remain understudied. We used the Nationwide Inpatient Sample to examine contributory causes and potential determinants associated with regional variations in ASD hospitalizations. We performed univariate and multivariate analyses to identify differences in ASD hospitalizations across four U.S. Census…

We examined the effects of insurance type on health service utilization among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) following autism insurance reform by analyzing the most recent data from the 2019 National Survey of Children's Health. Families with private insurance were less likely to report that their health insurance covered needed…

Background: Dedifferentiated policy treats adults with intellectual disabilities as part of the larger group of people with disabilities. The implications of the dedifferentiated National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) for adults with intellectual disabilities are explored. Methods: Analysis of peer reviewed and grey literature between 2014…

Adjunct faculty have become the new majority faculty on campuses across the country. There are two theories why adjunct faculty are so relied upon: cost or contingency. Some institutions may employ adjunct faculty for cost-savings reasons. In contrast, other institutions may depend on the contingent, temporary nature of the employment contracts to…

Importance: Children experiencing parental opioid use disorder are a growing population at heightened risk of physical and mental health issues over the life course. Yet these children are less likely to receive comprehensive, ongoing health care and their parents are more likely to report barriers to access health care for their children.…

This study compared Medicaid service utilization and expenditures among adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) as they aged into adulthood. Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) data was used to identify a national cohort. Winsorization was utilized to control for expenditure outliers. A greater…

This study examined psychotropic medication use among 7901 children aged 1-17 with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in five health systems, comparing to matched cohorts with no ASD. Nearly half (48.5%) of children with ASD received psychotropics in the year observed; the most common classes were stimulants, alpha-agonists, or atomoxetine (30.2%),…

Background: Health initiatives have been established in many workplaces to promote healthy behaviors among employees. Health Self-Empowerment Theory (HSET) suggests that personal, modifiable factors, such as motivation to engage in healthy behaviors, are pathways to increasing such behaviors. Purpose: The present study examined the effects of the…

States have increasingly transitioned Medicaid enrollees with disabilities from fee-for-service (FFS) to Medicaid Managed Care (MMC), intending to reduce state Medicaid spending and to provide better access to health services. Yet, previous studies on the impact of MMC are limited and findings are inconsistent. We analyzed the impact of MMC on…

Background: HealthLinks is a workplace health promotion program developed in partnership with the American Cancer Society. It delivers a package of evidence-based interventions and implementation support to small worksites in low-wage industries. As part of a randomized, controlled trial of HealthLinks, we studied approaches to recruiting these…

This dissertation consists of three independent chapters in applied microeconomics. In the first chapter, I study the causal effect impact of early life circumstances on adult psychological well-being using the property reform in China as a positive and policy driven change in economic resources in early life. Exploiting the staggered adoption of…

Background: The U.S. uninsured rate has dropped significantly since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), yet insurance coverage remains lower in historically marginalized communities than in the overall population. New consumer engagement approaches that involve these populations are needed. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the…