On the Evidence

In this episode of Mathematica’s “Policy in Perspective” podcast, listen to Mathematica Senior Fellows, James Verdier and Carol Irvin, discuss policy challenges and innovations in providing coordinated care and community supports to people with disabilities and frail older adults. This work supports the contributions of Mathematica’s Center for Studying Disability Policy to the evidence on today’s most critical issues in disability policy.

Mathematica researcher, Irma Perez-Johnson, shares her experience using behavioral insights to improve public programs.

Mathematica Senior Researcher Dana Rotz discusses a new study of how changes in marriage and divorce in the United States have affected employment and retirement for women.

Mathematica senior researchers Eric Isenberg and Jeffrey Max discuss their findings from a new study that addresses a key question in education policy: do low-income students have equal access to effective teachers?

In recognition of National Health IT Week, Mathematica Senior Fellow Emerita Marsha Gold and Senior Researcher Yael Harris explore the rollout and implementation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, a major federal initiative to support the development and use of electronic health information technology to help reform care delivery and, ultimately, improve health outcomes.

More Americans now have access to publicly subsidized health coverage through expansions in Medicaid, the federal insurance marketplace, and state health insurance exchanges. But how much do we know about who is enrolling, how they are enrolling, and when? This podcast describes California’s experience reporting on the ways in which people obtain health insurance, offering lessons for other states that are launching comparable reporting efforts.

In conjunction with National Public Health Week, Mathematica Senior Vice President and Director of Health Research Christopher Trenholm and Senior Fellow Judy Bigby discuss the changing role of public health programs in an era of health care reform.

Mathematica Senior Researcher Kristen Velyvis and Senior Fellow Sarah Hughes discuss the challenges of collecting high quality data from resource-poor environments. They describe specific examples of potential data collection barriers and suggest approaches that can help mitigate these challenges at each stage of the survey process.

Researchers Sonya Streeter and Craig Schneider discuss Mathematica’s key role in a major effort in U.S. health care reform—the development of accountable care organizations, which are networks of providers designed to deliver more efficient, higher quality care for Medicare beneficiaries.

Mathematica Senior Fellow Henry Ireys and senior researchers Grace Anglin and Joe Zickafoose describe the CHIPRA Quality Demonstration Grant Program—the largest federal effort in the past decade to improve health care for children—and the lessons it offers for states and others that have a stake in providing quality care for children.

A Mathematica report shows that students’ scores on the existing high school assessment in Massachusetts predict college performance as well as scores on a new test that was recently developed by a consortium of states to align with Common Core standards. Mathematic education policy experts Brian Gill and Ira Nichols-Barrer discuss the national implications of these findings.

Mathematica Senior Fellow Debra Lipson examines the political and economic forces that have shaped policymaking on family caregiving over the past two decades and identifies key areas for potential progress.