May 2022

CHAS eNews

A Bifurcated Opioid Treatment System and Widening Insidious Disparities

Between 2015 and 2017, individuals who identify as Black and Latino in the United States faced the highest rates of increase in opioid-involved deaths. In a new publication, Erick Guerrero, Hortensia Amaro, Tenie Khachikian, Mona Zahir, and Jeanne Marsh (CHAS Director and George Herbert Jones Distinguished Service Professor at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice) highlight this disproportionate increase and the significant ethnoracial and socioeconomic inequities in accessing evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). The article highlights that Black and Latino clients are less likely to complete OUD treatment than white clients. Although medication OUD treatment (MOUD) benefits clients of all backgrounds, Black and Latino clients face 30% lower odds of receiving MOUD. The authors state that “recognizing how the current structure of addiction health services system may perpetuate bifurcated and racialized OUD treatment is as critical as developing and deploying anti-racist federal, state, and county policies and practices to ensure equity in access to high-quality care in OUD treatment.” Read all of the authors’ policy and practice recommendations in the article below. 

Early Experience of the Quality Improvement Award Program in Federally Funded Health Centers

A new study focuses on the Quality Improvement Awards (QIA) program, started by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in 2018 as the first program to financially reward HRSA-funded federally qualified health centers for achieving quality metrics. In this study, researchers including Elbert Huang (Professor of Medicine at UChicago and CHAS fellow) and Marshall Chin (Richard Parrillo Family Professor of Healthcare Ethics in the Department of Medicine at UChicago and CHAS fellow) describe the development and evolution of the QIA program to show the percentage of health centers achieving QIA metrics, describe the QIA payment patterns, and share early lessons learned. The researchers found that the average cumulative funding was higher for health centers that were not rural, used their Electronic Health Records (EHR) for quality reporting, and were large. They conclude that QIA is an important feasible initiative to introduce value-based payment principles to health centers. Furthermore, early lessons learned include announcing award criteria in advance and focusing on a smaller number of priority targets. Read the complete study below. 

5/31/2022 @ 12:30pm CDT

Matt Epperson, PhD, MSW

UChicago Crown Family School

Presenting with: Samantha Guz, MSSW, LSW, UChicago Crown Family School

It’s Not Too Late to Submit a CHAS PhD Stipend Support Application for Crown Family School Affiliated Research Projects

The Center for Health Administration Studies (CHAS) at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice supports health policy and services research by offering a stipend to doctoral students who play an active role in the research of CHAS fellows, CHAS affiliates, and other CHAS-funded faculty members. Stipend recipients will receive a total of $3,000 of financial support, which will be distributed in three $1,000 increments, one increment per quarter in most cases.

Visit our website to learn more about the program and the submission process. 

Register to Attend "Families and the New Era of Genetics: Meeting Clinical, Health Equity, and Ethical Challenges"

Through a multisystemic resilience-oriented lens, this workshop provides an overview of common clinical issues and challenges relating to family genetic medicine, and the role of mental health professionals working in various practice contexts. There are ethical, legal, and health equity considerations in the field of genetics that affect patient uptake of and access to genetics services. Participants will gain an understanding of the current scope of genetic medicine and how it relates to family systems, engage in interactive discussion, and be provided a list of resources for future learning.

Register by June 7: https://families-new-era-genetics.eventbrite.com