Kosali Simon, PhD, M.A., a professor with the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and a Regenstrief Institute research scientist; and Katherine Baicker, PhD, University of Chicago provost, will co-lead an expected nearly $16 million National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute on Aging (NIA) program to explore critical aspects of healthcare delivery for individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).
This five-year research initiative aims to identify and address barriers to equitable and effective healthcare for this growing patient population. The initiative will include, in addition to the IU O’Neill School in Bloomington and University of Chicago, collaboration with the National Bureau of Economic Research, the IU School of Medicine and Regenstrief’s IU Center for Aging Research.
Dr. Simon will serve as the project lead for “Provider-Patient/Caregiver Racial Concordance and Equity in Health Care Systems: Their Influence on Health and Healthcare Outcomes for Populations with ADRD,” which will examine these relationships between healthcare providers and patients and how they impact healthcare use and health outcomes. Using decades of Medicare data from rural and urban areas, the project explores the prevalence, drivers and effects. The study will compare ambulatory care settings, where patients may choose providers, to emergency departments, where assignments are more random.
Regenstrief research scientists Nicole Fowler, PhD, MHSA, and Jennifer Carnahan, M.D., MPH, M.A., will work alongside Dr. Simon on the research project as co-investigators.
Malaz Boustani, M.D., MPH, founding director of the Sandra Eskenazi Center for Brain Care Innovation and the Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science and a research scientist in the IU Center for Aging Research at Regenstrief, also will be a core leader for the project.
Kosali Simon, PhD, M.A.
In addition to her role as a research scientist in the William M. Tierney Center for Health Services Research at Regenstrief Institute, Kosali Simon, PhD, M.A., is a distinguished professor, Herman B. Wells Professor and Paul O’Neill Chair at Indiana University, Bloomington, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. She also is the associate vice provost of health sciences for the IU Bloomington campus. A health economist, her research focuses on the impacts of state and federal healthcare policies on health and related outcomes, especially among at-risk populations. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
