Led by principal investigators Lynn Blewett, Kathleen Call, and Michael Davern, SHADAC is staffed by a unique combination of experienced professionals in health care access research, survey design and state health policy.
Principal Investigators
Lynn A. Blewett, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
e-mail: blewe001@umn.edu
ph: 612-625-2594
Dr. Blewett is an Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Blewett has more than 15 years of research and health policy experience at both the state and national levels. She is the founding Director of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC), a research and policy center that provides technical assistance to state analysts and policy makers across the country in the areas of survey design, data collection and policy development, as well as research on factors contributing to health care coverage and access in the United States.
Blewett holds a Ph.D. in health services research, and her expertise is in health care access and applied policy research. She has been successful in the application of research in a policy analysis framework. From 1992-1998, she was the state Health Economist and Director of the Health Economics Program for the Minnesota Department of Health. During this period of health reform, she oversaw data collection, research, and applied policy analysis of changing trends in Minnesota's health care market and helped developed Minnesota's approach to monitoring the uninsured.
Michael Davern, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator & Research Director
e-mail: daver004@umn.edu
phone: 612-625-4835
Dr. Davern uses his expertise in federal population surveys to help states translate and use national population survey data for state health policy work. He also consults with states collecting their own survey data on sampling, weighting, data editing/ imputation, writing documentation, data analyses strategies, and survey instrument design. Before joining SHADAC, Davern worked as a statistician for the United States Census Bureau. During his time at Census, he conducted evaluations of the methodologies and estimation techniques used in the Census Current Population Survey, the American Community Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation.
Kathleen Thiede Call, Ph.D., Investigator
e-mail: callx001@umn.edu
ph: 612-625-2932
Kathleen Thiede Call, Ph.D. has research interests in to two related areas. The first is access to health insurance coverage and health care services among vulnerable populations: poor, young, elderly, racial and ethnic communities, chronically ill and rural populations. Dr. Call has completed several statewide surveys of Minnesotans documenting characteristics of people with different kinds of insurance contracts and barriers to insurance coverage among the young, low-income and minorities. She has developed a stream of research concerning the complexities of measuring and estimating rates of insurance coverage. She is co-principal investigator (with Dr. Blewett) on the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which assists other states in monitoring rates of coverage and using data to inform policy and improve access.
The second area of research Dr. Call is developing is community-based participatory research focusing on barriers to health care and health disparities. She received her PhD in sociology in 1994, completed a NIA funded post-doctoral fellowship in the Behavioral Neuroscience of Aging in 1995. She teaches Sociological Theory in Health Services Research, and Principles of Public Health Research.
Center Staff
Gestur Davidson, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate
e-mail: david064@umn.edu
phone: 612-625-2339
Dr. Davidson has 25 years of experience conducting health services research and evaluation studies as an academician, as a research economist for the State of Minnesota, and as a private consultant in methodology for a large HMO. Dr. Davidson holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota. He is a methodologist with special interests in multi-level modeling. His research focuses on estimating the crowding-out of private insurance by public programs; developing and evaluating models for small-area estimation of insurance rates; and estimating the demand for subsidized public insurance. He has published widely and has served as an econometrician/ methodologist for numerous studies.
Kelli Johnson, M.B.A., Center Director
e-mail: johns706@umn.edu
phone: 612-624-1457
Ms. Johnson specializes in evaluation studies and is currently pursuing a doctorate at the University of Minnesota. She has over 15 years of experience working in the state health policy arena and has an in-depth knowledge of government structures and political processes. As the Minnesota Deputy Commissioner of Health, Ms. Johnson coordinated health policy activities with the Governor's office, the Minnesota State Legislature, governmental organizations, and the larger Minnesota community. Past experience also includes work for the Minnesota House of Representatives where she participated in the analysis and development of health care legislation and monitored the progress of initiatives through the legislative process.
Pamela Jo Johnson, MPH, Ph.D., Research Associate
e-mail: johns245@umn.edu
phone: 612-624-1406
Dr. Johnson is an epidemiologist whose research interests are in the areas of social epidemiology, health disparities, and applied research methods, with an emphasis on Maternal and Child Health and American Indian health. She has a background in healthcare where she worked for 15 years both in direct patient care and with clinical information systems. She also worked for six years in the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, on projects related to birth outcomes and neighborhood effects on health. Dr. Johnson brings skills in study design, data collection and management, statistical analysis, and the use of geographic information systems (GIS) applications for geocoding and mapping. She holds an MPH in Community Health Education and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Minnesota.
Elizabeth Lukanen, M.P.H., Senior Research Fellow
e-mail: elukanen@umn.edu
phone: 612-626-1537
Ms. Lukanen is the Deputy Director of the State Health Access Reform & Evaluation (SHARE) a National Program Office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that is operated out of SHADAC. SHARE supports the systematic evaluation of state health care reform activities. The findings of the program will help state policy makers identify approaches to health reform that are right for their state by assembling evidence from a wide variety of reform approaches. SHARE will run for four year, awarding $7 million in grant funding over that term. Prior to joining SHADAC, Ms. Lukanen worked as Senior Research Economist in the Health Economics Program (HEP) at the Minnesota Department of Health. Ms. Lukanen holds a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from McGill University.
Nitika Malik, M.P.P., Research Fellow
e-mail: mali0067@umn.edu
phone: 612-624-1566
Ms. Malik comes to SHADAC after completing her graduate degree in Public Policy from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining SHADAC, she was engaged in issues of economic development at UNESCO and served as a teaching assistant in health policy issues at the Humphrey Institute. She is interested in health policy design at the state and national levels. Her skills include research and analysis of health policy.
Karen Soderberg, Research Coordinator
e-mail: soder145@umn.edu
phone: 612-624-4802
Ms. Soderberg brings extensive experience in market research, marketing and communications. She has consulted in private sector finance and software industries, as well as non-profit organizations in the Minnesota community. At SHADAC, Ms. Soderberg uses her project management and communications experience to support research projects and to convey research findings to audiences at state and national agencies. She is currently pursuing a Master of Science degree in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.
Donna Spencer, M.A., Senior Research Fellow
e-mail: spen0143@umn.edu
phone: 612-625-2492
Ms. Spencer holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Social Research and is currently pursuing a doctorate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. She has over ten years of experience in public health and social science research aimed at informing federal and state policy. Prior to joining SHADAC, she was employed as a Research Sociologist at the Research Triangle Institute, where she was engaged in numerous national and state evaluation and needs assessment studies. She also worked at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, where she collaborated with state agencies to conduct a comprehensive survey on the health status, access and level of health care, and insurance coverage of both adults and children in the state. Ms. Spencer is skilled in research design, sampling, development of quantitative and qualitative research protocols and instruments, and data analysis.
Faculty Advisors
Ira Moscovice, Ph.D.
Dr. Moscovice is a Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management and the director of the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center. His research interests include rural health care networks, technology diffusion in rural areas, the viability of rural hospitals, and the quality of rural health care. In 2002, he received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research. He provides senior research advice and direction.
Jon B. Christianson, Ph.D.
Dr. Christianson holds the James A. Hamilton Chair in Health Policy and Management and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Healthcare Management at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Christianson is a leader in the field of managed care research and contributes his technical expertise as an econometrician to the Center. He also provides leadership in the development of technical assistance products and in translating research to applied policy.
Todd Rockwood, Ph.D.
Dr. Rockwood is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management. He brings expertise in survey research methods to the project. He has conducted experiments and published papers on survey research methodology. His current research interests include measurement error in survey research, focusing on the impact that mode of survey administration and question order effects have on survey outcomes.
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