August 2021
CHAS eNews
Service Innovation
Provider and Patient Perspectives on a New Tangible Decision Aid Tool to Support Patient-Centered Contraceptive Counseling With Adolescents and Young Adults
In research supported by CHAS's Seed Grant program, CHAS fellows including Amber Truehart (Former UChicago Assistant Professor and newly appointed Medical Director of the UNM Center for Reproductive Health) and Melissa Gilliam (UChicago Professor and Founder and Director of Ci3) studied a new contraceptive counseling decision aid tool for adolescents and young adults. This innovative tool – called Hello Options – was designed with a human-centered approach by researchers, designers, clinicians, and adolescents, and allows patients to see and feel life-size "tangible" models of the range of contraceptive methods available to them. Between December 2019 and March 2020, the researchers piloted the tool in a study involving 10 contraceptive care providers and 40 adolescent and young adult patients in Chicago. The study revealed that patients had positive reactions to using the new tool and that patients were able to better understand how contraceptive methods work in their body to make more informed decisions. Healthcare providers also reported that the tool helped them to have conversations with patients that dispelled myths about particular methods. This study shows that Hello Options is a useful, feasible, and acceptable tool that supports patient-centered care for young people.
Policy Brief
Water Scarcity & Procedural Justice in Honduras: Community-Based Management Meets Market-Based Policy
"Ensuring adequate access to clean water remains a major challenge throughout the world, particularly in rural areas of the Global South." In this new paper coauthored by Alan Zarychta (CHAS Fellow and Assistant Professor at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice), the authors highlight that community-based management – a process where communities gain decision-making power over their own natural resources – is a common policy response to this challenge. Additionally, household water metering, which facilitates transparency of water usage and allows pay-per-use pricing, is increasingly proposed alongside community-based management. Although this method is thought to support the sustainable management of water supplies, metering and use-based fees are controversial and have elicited strong backlash around the world. In this study, the researchers employed ideas of procedural justice and conducted a survey experiment in Honduras’ “dry corridor” to examine individual perceptions of the decision process for choosing to implement metering, or not, within the context of community-based management. The results from their survey showed that more inclusive decision-making leads to higher perceived fairness of the process and appropriateness of the metering decision, regardless of whether the individual personally agrees with the metering decision. The paper suggests that the backlash observed against water metering projects around the world may be more related to procedural injustice than individuals' resistance to metering.
Upcoming Lectures
Michael M. Davis Lectures:
CHAS will continue to announce 2021 Autumn Quarter lectures. Save the dates below!

10/05/2021 @12:30 pm CDT
lecture details TBD

10/12/2021 @12:30 pm CDT
lecture details TBD

10/19/2021 @12:30 pm CDT
lecture details TBD

10/26/2021 - No lecture

11/02/2021 @12:30 pm CDT
Janelle R. Goodwill, PhD
Crown Family School

11/09/2021 @12:30 pm CDT
Alida M. Bouris, PhD
Crown Family School

11/16/2021 @12:30 pm CDT
lecture details TBD
CHAS Podcasts
Invisible Visits: Black Middle-Class Women in the American Healthcare System

Dr. Tina Sacks, AM ’98, PhD ’13 Assistant Professor
School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley
The Importance of Community Asset Mapping, Medical Integration with Social Sciences, and Youth Involvement

Dr. Stacy Lindau, PhD
Professor, Department of Medicine, UChicago Medicine and CIO/Founder of NowPow
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Announcements
Watch Michael M. Davis eLectures on YouTube!
Each academic quarter, the Center for Health Administration Studies (CHAS) sponsors the Michael M. Davis Lecture Series, which brings renowned policy experts, researchers, and commentators to the University to explore the intersection of health policy and the broad needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged populations. If you missed a lecture, you can access the recording of any lecture on our YouTube channel and watch at your leisure!