Notes on Contributors

Marc L. Berger is vice president of Global Health Outcomes at Eli Lilly and Company. He holds an MD from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and has adjunct appointments as senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and as professor in the Department of Health Policy and Administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health. Berger has served on the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the editorial advisory board of Value in Health, and the steering committee for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Centers for Research and Education on Therapeutics.

Lynn A. Blewett is an associate professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She is also the director of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center, an initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), to conduct research and policy analysis on the factors affecting health insurance coverage. She also directs the State Health Access Reform Evaluation, a new RWJF initiative to fund and synthesize research on state health reform. Blewett received her doctorate in health services research, policy, and administration from the University of Minnesota and a master of arts in public affairs from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

Porismita Borah is a doctoral student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on media effects and the role of individual differences and predispositions in conditioning these effects. Prior to graduate school she worked in national news television, NDTV in New Delhi, India.

Q. Lisa Bu is a doctoral student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A Sun-Certified Java Programmer, she focuses her research on the convergence between communication technologies and mass media. She also works part-time as a producer and webmaster for the Here on Earth program at Wisconsin Public Radio.

Lawton Robert Burns is the James Joo-Jin Kim Professor, professor of health care systems and management, and director of the Wharton Center for Health Management and Economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a PhD.

Michael E. Davern is an assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and is research director and co-principal investigator of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center. His research expertise is in survey methods and demographic health data and in applying these to inform health policy. His survey methods research includes work in nonresponse, measurement error, imputation, sampling error estimation, weighting, and production of federal survey data, as well as other survey data used for state-level policy work. He holds a PhD.

David A. Kindig is emeritus professor of population health sciences and emeritus vice chancellor for health sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. He also serves as senior advisor to the Wisconsin Population Health Institute and is co-director of the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received MD and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago School of Medicine in 1968 and completed residency training in social pediatrics at Montefiore Hospital in 1971. Kindig was the first medical director of the National Health Services Corps (1971–1973), director of Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center (1976–1980), and vice chancellor for health sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1980–1985). He served as senior advisor to Secretary Donna Shalala (1993–1995), was elected to the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences (1996), and served as president of the Association for Health Services Research (1997–1998). Following a sabbatical in York, England, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Kindig published Purchasing Population Health: Paying for Results in 1997.

Ralph W. Muller is currently chief executive officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. From 1985 to 2001 he was president and chief executive officer of the University of Chicago Hospitals. He is a commissioner on the Joint Commission and a director of the National Committee for Quality Assurance. He served as commissioner on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, chairman of the Association of American Medical Colleges, chairman of the Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems, chairman of the National Opinion Research Council, and vice chairman of the University HealthSystem Consortium. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

James F. Murray is executive director of U.S. Outcomes Research at Merck and Co., Inc., where he is responsible for U.S.–based outcomes and program evaluations in the areas of adherence, quality measurement and improvement, patient-centered care, and quality-based contracting methods. He has published and presented on a wide range of health care issues. Murray holds a PhD.

Sean Nicholson is an associate professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is currently conducting research in three areas: the value of innovation in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry; how physicians develop their treatment styles and whether patients choose physicians based on their preferences for treatment styles; and measuring the financial benefit to an employer of investing in the health of its workers. He received a PhD in economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Jeff Niederdeppe is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University. He received his PhD in 2006 from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His research examines the effectiveness of large-scale health promotion media campaigns, the impact of news coverage on health policy, and the development of specific message design tools to advance changes in health behavior and social policy. Niederdeppe has contributed to the evaluation of several large state and national media campaigns, including the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and the National Truth Anti-Smoking Media Campaign.

Mark V. Pauly is the Bendheim Professor in the Health Care Management Department at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His research covers broad areas in health economics and health care management, including health insurance, measurement of the impacts of health on productivity in developing and developed countries, and health policy for the uninsured. He holds a PhD.

Stephanie A. Robert is associate professor at the School of Social Work and in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is co-director of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program and is a research affiliate at the Center for Demography and Ecology, the Institute for Research on Poverty, the Institute on Aging, and the LaFollette School of Public Affairs. Most of her research has examined the social and economic determinants of health over the life course, particularly focusing on the contributions of neighborhood context to health. Some of her current research examines the general public’s knowledge and attitudes about social and economic determinants of health and about health disparities. Robert holds a PhD.

Steven M. Teutsch is executive director of U.S. Outcomes Research at Merck and Co., Inc., where he is responsible for scientific leadership in developing evidence-based clinical management programs, conducting outcomes research studies, and improving outcomes measurement to enhance quality of care. He has published over 150 articles and six books on diabetes, technology assessment, evidence-based practice, public health, health services research, and surveillance. Teutsch holds an MD and an MPH.

Anita Ya Jung Wu obtained a master of health administration from Cornell University and has taken a strong interest in initiatives to improve the U.S. health care delivery system and in how such outcomes can help sustain the overall health care system. In her role as the business information lead with Nationwide Better Health she promotes corporate health initiatives to improve health and well-being of employees. Wu also takes part in a corporate research group that investigates a wide array of health management issues and results, including the evaluation of the effectiveness of health promotion and productivity management programs.

Jeanette Ziegenfuss is a doctoral candidate in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota and a graduate research assistant at the State Health Access Data Assistance Center. Her research expertise includes the measurement of health insurance coverage, survey research, and state health policy. Her dissertation examines the influence of awareness campaigns on children’s enrollment in public health insurance programs.