JUNE 2022
Director's Note
As we move past UCSF’s graduation ceremonies and into the summer, we are taking a break on June 20 to celebrate the new federal Juneteeth holiday. As we celebrate the contributions of African Americans to scholarship, arts, and culture, we continue our work toward advancing equity and informing policy to achieve it.
 
This month’s Newsletter features research on access to healthcare and insurance. The ability to pay for healthcare services is inextricably tied to access to care in the United States. And, there are many other barriers that people face to accessing high-quality, timely, and culturally responsive care. IHPS researchers are leading innovative studies that are shaping our foundational and practical understanding of how to break down these barriers to ensure that all people can access the care they need.
 
Joanne Spetz
IHPS Focus On:
Access to Care and Insurance

Many IHPS faculty are working on policy related to access to care and insurance.
Renee Hsia, MD, MSc researches how structural racism impacts access to care, particularly in the emergency department. Kathryn Phillips, PhD focuses on how to achieve equitable, effective, and efficient access to care and payer coverage for precision medicine and other emerging technologies. Elena Portacolone, PhD, MBA, MPH conducts research that aims at developing policy recommendations to expand access to healthcare services for older adults with cognitive impairment who are living alone, particularly in communities of color. Mary Whooley, MD works to improve access to cardiac rehabilitation. Lena Winestone, MD focuses on access to care among patients with childhood cancer.

Learn more about IHPS's current work to improve access to care and insurance. Read more
Upcoming Events
California Labor Lab Webinar
Protecting Essential Workers Beyond the Pandemic: Insights from Research and Organizing

Alejandra Domenzain
Jassy Grewal
Ben Master
UC Berkeley
Webinar link here
June 22, 2022
12 - 1 pm PT
IHPS Philip R. Lee Fellow
Please join us in welcoming our new Philip R. Lee Fellow,
Juliana Friend, PhD!
Juliana Friend, PhD, is a medical and cultural anthropologist who uses participatory research approaches to understand and address health disparities. She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Juliana has a particular interest in the impact of tech policy on health systems. Her past research foregrounded sexually stigmatized communities as architects of digital privacy policy and digital health communication strategies. As a fellow, she will explore the relationship between digital health, health communication, and health equity. 
Research Highlights


Charlie Wray, DO, MS, Oanh Nguyen, MD, MAS and colleagues found striking disparities in telemedicine unreadiness among socially vulnerable and other at-risk populations—with as many as 1 in 2 being telemedicine unready in the highest risk populations. Their findings are in a recent Journal of General Internal Medicine article.


In a recent JAMA Network Open article,
Joanne Spetz, PhD, Laura Schmidt, PhD, MSW, MPH, Susan Chapman, RN, PhD, FAAN and colleagues found the growth of the workforce providing buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder is increasingly important amidst long-standing shortages of buprenorphine prescribers and rising opioid overdose deaths. Their findings suggest growth in the number of clinicians with waivers to prescribe buprenorphine slowed during the pandemic. The relaxation of training requirements for 30-patient waivers in April 2021 did not mitigate this. Read more

In a recent Cancer Discovery article, Jennifer Grandis, MD discusses barriers to gender equity in the scientific and medical workforce, where women comprise half of the scientific and medical workforce yet still hold a minority of leadership positions. She also offers a new approach to address the problem. Read more

A recent study by Harold Collard, Jr. MD, MAS, Mary Whooley, MD and colleagues used the Veterans Health Administration electronic health record system to evaluate the association between exposure to Agent Orange, an herbicide and chemical defoliant used during the Vietnam War, and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). They found that presumptive Agent Orange exposure was associated with a 14% higher risk of developing IPF in an unadjusted analysis and an 8% higher risk of IPF after adjusting for known IPF risk factors. Their findings were recently published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Read more
IHPS faculty are responding to policy challenges raised by the
COVID-19 pandemic with rapid-cycle research and technical assistance.

One recent publication is by Christina Mangurian, MD, MAS and colleagues, "COVID-19 and Lessons to Improve Preparedness for the Next Pandemic" published in JAMA.  
IHPS Faculty Spotlight
Dr. Elan Guterman is a neurologist and clinical researcher dedicated to the care of patients with neurological disorders seen in the prehospital, emergency, and hospital setting. She obtained a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, obtained a medical degree from Weill Cornell Medical College, and completed neurology residency and a neurohospitalist fellowship at UCSF. She became a faculty member of the UCSF Department of Neurology in 2018 and an affiliate faculty member of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies in 2021. She also serves as Viewpoints Editor for JAMA Neurology.

Following her clinical training, she obtained a master’s degree in clinical research through the UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics with the goal of using those skills to study and improve the delivery of emergency and inpatient neurologic care. Her work is focused on identifying gaps in the real-world care of common neurologic disorders such as epilepsy, stroke, and dementia and implementing solutions that improve access to high-quality care. This work parallels her clinical work attending on the inpatient neurology consult and ward service where she is deeply committed to the mentorship of medical student, resident, and fellowship trainees.
Media Mentions