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Washington D.C. (May 18, 2023)—AcademyHealth announced today the 2023 winners of its Annual Awards program. The awards program recognizes individuals and projects that have made significant contributions to the fields of health services research and health policy, while supporting AcademyHealth’s mission to improve health and health care for all.
AcademyHealth will honor the recipients of these prestigious awards during the opening plenary session of the 2023 Annual Research Meeting on Saturday, June 24 from 4:30 pm - 6:15 pm PST at the Seattle Washington Convention Center.
Reinhardt Distinguished Career Award
Katherine Baicker, Ph.D.
The Reinhardt Distinguished Career Award is AcademyHealth’s highest award, recognizing leaders who have made significant and lasting contributions to the field of health services research (HSR). Previously known as either the Distinguished Career or Distinguished Investigator Award, the Award was renamed in 2023 to honor Professor Uwe Reinhardt, a seminal figure in the field who established high standards in moving evidence into action and translating evidence to serve the public interest.
The 2023 recipient, Katherine Baicker, Ph.D., is the provost of the University of Chicago, where she previously served as dean of the Harris School of Public Policy. Baicker’s research focuses on the effectiveness of public and private health insurance and the effects of health system reforms. She is the Principal Investigator of multiple large-scale NIH-funded research programs, and her research appears in leading academic journals across medicine, economics, and health policy.
She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Social Insurance, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She serves on the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Health Advisers, as a Director of Eli Lilly, and as a Trustee of the Mayo Clinic, the Urban Institute, NORC, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She has served as a Commissioner on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission; as Chair of the Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission; as Chair of the Board of Directors of AcademyHealth; and as a Senate-confirmed Member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. She received her BA in economics from Yale and her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard.
Dr. Baicker also has the distinction of having delivered the inaugural Reinhardt Lecture at the 2018 ARM. AcademyHealth and the journal HSR concluded the lecture series in 2022.
Alice S. Hersh Emerging Leader Award
Clare C. Brown, Ph.D., M.P.H.
The Alice S. Hersh Emerging Leader Award recognizes scholars early in their careers as health services researchers who show exceptional promise for future contributions to the field.
The 2023 recipient, Clare C. Brown, Ph.D., M.P.H., serves as an Assistant Professor and Vice Chair for Education in the Health Policy and Management Department in the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health (COPH) at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). She additionally serves as a Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Medicaid Innovation in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Brown’s research focuses on understanding the impact of policies on access to healthcare, with an emphasis on evaluations of factors associated with racial and ethnic health disparities and adverse maternal and infant health outcomes. Dr. Brown has first-author publications in leading healthcare journals, such as Health Affairs, JAMA, Pediatrics, Women’s Health Issues, Obstetrics & Gynecology, among others. Her work has been highlighted in national news outlets, such as CNN, Washington Post, and Vox, and her findings have been used in policy-related materials, such as the White House Blueprint for addressing adverse maternal outcomes, March of Dimes report cards, MACPAC reports, ACOG recommendations, and a state-level Supreme Court decision. Most recently, Dr. Brown was awarded a K01 from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) to test algorithmic fairness of predictive models for low birthweight to make a case that algorithmically fair approaches are critically important for equitable population health management.
Dr. Brown was selected as an NIMHD Health Disparities Research Scholar, as the recipient of the UAMS Chancellor’s Award for Community and/or Institutional Service, and as the recipient of a UAMS Dr. Edith Irby Jones Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award. Dr. Brown has additionally received top teaching and service awards within multiple colleges in her University.
Dr. Brown received her M.P.H. with a concentration in Health Policy and Management in 2015 and her Ph.D. in Health Systems and Services Research with a concentration in health economics in 2018, both from UAMS.
Publication-of-the-Year Award
Many Medicare Beneficiaries Do Not Fill High-Price Specialty Drug Prescriptions (Health Affairs)
Stacie B. Dusetzina, Ph.D.
The Publication-of-the-Year Award recognizes the best and most relevant peer-reviewed, scientific work that the fields of health services research and health policy have produced and published in the prior calendar year.
Dr. Dusetzina is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and an Ingram professor of cancer research at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She is a health services researcher focusing on the intersection between health policy, epidemiology, and economics related to prescription drugs. Dr. Dusetzina’s work has contributed to the evidence base for the role of drug costs and coverage on patient access to care.
She has been recognized for her work at a national level, including co-authoring a National Academies of Medicine report on “Making Medicines Affordable,” advising Congressional committees and multiple government agencies on prescription drug legislation, and being selected to serve on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission in 2021. Most recently, her work on access to high-priced medications for Medicare beneficiaries was used by the White House and President Biden when promoting and passing the Inflation Reduction Act.
Outstanding Dissertation Award
Kelsey Owsley, Ph.D., M.P.H.
The Outstanding Dissertation Award honors an outstanding scientific contribution from a doctoral thesis in health services research or health policy.
Dr. Owsley is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and a member of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. Dr. Owsley’s research focuses on health policy issues and hospital decision-making related to access to care for safety-net populations. She aims to use rigorous quasi-experimental research designs to inform policies designed to efficiently improve access to care for low-income and rural populations, particularly for patients diagnosed with cancer.
Dr. Owsley’s dissertation entitled, “Hospital Profitability and Safety Net Engagement: An Assessment of the 340B Drug Discount Program and Not-for-profit Hospital Acquisitions”, assessed hospital decision-making related to safety-net services and population health improvement efforts. Specifically, she examined whether, and to what extent, nonprofit hospitals redistribute financial surplus to the community by providing uncompensated care to low-income and uninsured patients, subsidizing access to unprofitable, but essential services, and investing in population health activities.
Her first paper, “Understanding the relationship between nonprofit hospital community benefit spending and system membership: An analysis of independent hospital acquisitions” was recently published in the Journal of Health Economics (Volume 86, Article 102696). This study found that not-for-profit hospitals reduced community health improvement spending following an acquisition by a health system, despite an increase in hospital operating margins. This paper received a best abstract award at the 2020 AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting.
She received her doctorate in Health Services Research from the Colorado School of Public Health and her M.P.H. in Health Promotion and Policy from the University of Missouri-Columbia.