The Women's and Children's Health Policy Center

Faculty

Cynthia S. Minkovitz, MD, MPP, is Director of the Women's and Children's Health Policy Center (WCHPC) and a professor in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. Dr. Minkovitz also holds a joint appointment in the School of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics. Her research activities focus on improving systems of preventive care for children and understanding maternal influences on children's well-being and receipt of health care services. Dr. Minkovitz is leading an NHLBI funded study examining how variation in state newborn screening programs influences survival of children with sickle cell disease. As part of the Dyson Initiative National Evaluation, she is examining the national context of efforts to enhance training in Community Pediatrics. Dr. Minkovitz also led the 5 year follow up for the national evaluation of Healthy Steps for Young Children. She has received an "Advising, Mentoring, and Teaching Recognition Award" in 2010 and twice previously. She also serves on the Nemours Health and Prevention Services Advisory Council.

Bernard Guyer, MD, MPH, serves as principal investigator for the Healthy Steps Evaluation Project funded by The Commonwealth Fund, which is conducted under the auspices of the WCHPC. Dr. Guyer is the Zanvyl Kreiger Professor of Children's Health. He is a physician trained in both preventive medicine and pediatrics, and held public health faculty positions for over 10 years. Dr. Guyer served seven years as director of state MCH program in Massachusetts and five years as a CDC medical epidemiologist with national and international service. He chaired or was a member of several national committees on childhood injury prevention and outreach for prenatal care, and MCH/Medicaid Technical Advisory Group, respectively. Dr. Guyer was appointed membership in the Institute of Medicine. Specific research interests include MCH policy, practice and financing, childhood injury prevention, perinatal health, childhood immunization, and early childhood development and evaluation

Holly A. Grason, MA, is an associate professor in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Ms. Grason served as Director of the Women's and Children's Health Policy Center (WCHPC) from 1993 until September 2006. As Director, she oversaw center development and multidisiplinary faculty research and product development in the application of research to the practice of public MCH program implementation. Ms. Grason's graduate training is in the field of child development. She worked in the Maryland-MCH Program for 7 years before working at the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs from 1988-1993, where she served as Deputy Director. Ms. Grason's key MCH contributions center on the development of frameworks for describing and analyzing issues related to roles, organization, and functions of public programs serving women and children. These frameworks address a range of concerns, including financing, quality of care, women's health, and the continuum of public-private sector MCH services and activities at the community, state, and national levels. These frameworks have provided the basis for development of policy documents, measurement tools, and educational materials for MCH program managers, as well as publications in the juried literature. Ms. Grason led the effort to develop and co-authored the MCH Program Functions Framework and Capacity Assessment for State Title V Programs - CAST 5, and frequently provides technical consultations to state Title V programs across the country. Ms. Grason's current passions include strengthening the intersections between MCH science, education, practice, and workforce development.

Donna M. Strobino, PhD, is a professor in and deputy chair of the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health and is trained as a demographer. Her areas of research include perinatal health as it relates to racial and maternal age differences in newborn and infant mortality and morbidity, the evaluation of perinatal programs and services, the impact of managed care on perinatal service delivery, and child health data systems. Dr. Strobino is a member of the core faculty of the WCHPC as well as a member of the Healthy Steps Evaluation Team. Dr. Strobino also provides extensive consultation to Title V MCH programs and is a member of several committees including the Data and Surveillance Committee for the Maryland Commission on Infant Mortality Prevention, and on the MCHB Research Review Committee.

Michele Decker, ScD, MPH, is an assistant professor in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. Her research addresses gender-based violence and related constraints on sexual decision-making, and their health implications. This work is focused on particularly vulnerable groups including teens and those involved in transactional sex. She has been involved in clinic-based intervention efforts to address the health consequences of violence, as well as primary research to understand the mechanisms by which violence influences sexual health and HIV risk. Her research includes large-scale quantitative investigations as well as formative work; her international work has focused on South and Southeast Asia. Her research is informed by a social epidemiology framework.

Sai Ma, PhD, is an assistant scientist in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research interest includes social determinants of early childhood health and development, paternal roles in child development, family-, school- and neighborhood-level influence on child physical and mental well-being, and health disparities across racial and ethnic groups. She is also interested in health and social consequences of aging in China as well as China's health care system reform. She received her doctorate degree from the Pardee RAND Graduate School in March, 2007.

Anne W. Riley, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and holds joint appointments in the Department of Mental Health in the School of Public Health and in the Department of Psychiatry in the Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Riley is a clinical psychologist, health services researcher, and a prevention researcher with expertise in program implementation and instrument development. Her research is focused on ways to address the needs of families affected by maternal depression, the impact of medical disorders on family members, and the role of health and mental health on functioning, school engagement and academic outcomes of children as they move from elementary to middle school. She is working with other experts at the University of Maryland to implement and evaluate a third-generation computerized outcomes evaluation system to improve the quality of treatment services for youth with mental health problems. She led the development of child and parent-report questionnaires to assess the health-related quality of life of children and adolescents, the CHIP-CE (Child Health and Illness Profile-Child Edition), which is being used to evaluate the health and clinical outcomes of children in more than 20 countries. She and colleagues at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia are leading the development of a comprehensive measure of child and adolescent health that uses a computerized adaptive technology so that children and parents can quickly provide a precise assessment of the child's health. The development is being supported through the NIH Roadmap PROMIS initiative to produce a standard health assessment tool that all researchers and evaluators can use. Dr. Riley co-leads a training program funded by NIMH to prepare doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows for a research career in child and family mental health services research. Dr. Riley's service work is focused on a state-wide advocacy organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for children and families through policy analysis, advocacy, and legislation.

Pamela Surkan, PhD, ScD, is an assistant professor in the Departments of International Health and Health Behavior and Society. Dr. Surkan is a social epidemiologist whose research focuses on maternal and child health. She has a strong interest in inter-generational influences on health, especially the role of maternal mental health and social support in early child development. She has conducted research in northeast Brazil to examine the relationship between maternal social conditions, including social support and maternal depressive symptoms, and a variety of child health status indicators. In collaboration with other investigators at the WCHPC, Dr. Surkan is currently expanding her research on this topic using data from a longitudinal nationally representative US population. Another area of active research involves examining cultural contexts of women's and children's health. Related research interests include an examination in non-Western cultures of maternal mental health changes after loss of a child, and the design of cross-culturally applicable strategies for measuring the effects of human rights violations on maternal and child health.

Lisa Dubay, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the John's Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Dubay is a health policy analyst with more than 20 years of experience evaluaing major federal and state health policy initiatives. Prior to joining Hopkins she was a Principal Research Associate at the Urban Institute. Dr. Dubay's research expertise centers on assessing the impact of public policies on insurance coverage, access to care, and the health of low-income populations. Dr. Dubay has lead major federal and foundation evaluations of expansions of the Medicaid program to pregnant women and children, the State Children's Health Insurance Program and the movement to managed care under the Medicaid. Dr. Dubay has also examined the influence of malpractice fears on the practice of defensive medicine. Dr. Dubay's current research interest includes understanding the pathways that lead to socio-economic and racial disparities in child health, well-being, and psychological and cognitive functioning.

Kevin Frick, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, JHSPH. He earned a PhD in economics and health services research at the University of Michigan. Dr. Frick's work has focused on producing policy-relevant analyses. He combines his knowledge of economic analysis with clinical and epidemiological insights from his colleagues to produce cost-effectiveness analyses that bring the tools of economic decision making to policy-makers. He has contributed to a large number of such projects, including community-based interventions such as the Baltimore City Healthy Start program, the Experience Corps volunteer program for older adults, and an intervention to increase breastfeeding duration among low income women. Dr. Frick also has explored the special issues around quality of life and productivity loss measurement for women in cost-effectiveness studies and is working on a project projecting lifetime costs associated with childhood obesity.

Barry Solomon, MD, MPH, is Medical Director of the Harriet Lane Clinic and an associate professor in the Division of General Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The Harriet Lane Clinic is a large academic-based urban primary care practice which serves as the main general pediatrics training site for residents and medical students. With colleagues in the School of Medicine and the Baltimore City community, Dr. Solomon has brought a variety of health-related services to the Harriet Lane Clinic to serve as a comprehensive medical home for patients and families. The clinic’s model of on-site family-centered services now includes a Health Leads Family Resource Desk to link families with community-based resources, mental health consultation for children and adolescents, and a screening and referral program for mothers experiencing intimate partner violence or postpartum depression. Dr. Solomon's research and advocacy interests include injury and youth violence prevention, the delivery of children's mental health services in primary care settings, and medical education. He is co-investigator on the Dyson Initiative National Evaluation. Dr. Solomon is also an active teacher in the pediatric residency program and medical school and a Core Faculty member in the Colleges Advisory Program where he serves as a clinical skills instructor, faculty co-leader of the Helen Taussig College, and longitudinal faculty advisor to Hopkins medical students.

Christopher L. Smith, PhD, serves as the Director of the Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities (MCDD) at Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) in Baltimore. He also holds an appointment as an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Prior to his work at the MCDD, Dr. Smith was the founder and director of the Center on Quality in Human Services at the University of Kansas Center on Developmental Disabilities. He has over 25 years of experience in the field of developmental disabilities, representing work with adults and children with various disabilities. Dr. Smith has served as an investigator for a number of technical assistance, training, evaluation, and continuous quality improvement projects including projects serving consumers with developmental disabilities, early childhood, community action programs, after-school programs, and mental health programs. Dr. Smith spent several years as the Co-Director of a state-wide training project in Kansas that focused on technical assistance and training in the areas of person-centered planning and positive behavior support for persons with cognitive and developmental disabilities. In addition, Dr. Smith has served as the Principal Investigator for three contracts with the State of Ohio Department of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities involving evaluation, quality management, and performance measurement. Dr. Smith has served as a consultant to schools on the implementation and evaluation of school-wide projects in Kansas, and has published articles related to continuous systems-level assessment and evaluation.

Pamela K. Donohue, ScD, PA-C, is an assistant professor in the School of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics and holds a joint appointment in the School of Public Health's Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. She is the director of Clinical Research for the Division of Neonatology and the NICU Safety and Performance Improvement Initiative. Her areas of research interest include the outcome of families of very low birthweight infants, health delivery systems for preterm and critically ill infants both in the hospital and after discharge home, and physician-parent communication around critical decision-making for fetuses and newborns. She is a member of the Baltimore City Fetal Infant Mortality Review Committee, and the MCHB Research Review Committee. She writes policy for the American Academy of Physician Assistants as a member of the Professional Practice Council.

Marjory Ruderman, MHS, is an associate in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Ms. Ruderman has worked with Women's and Children's Health Policy Center for over a decade, with a primary focus on public health system functions and capacity. Currently, she is leading the development of the WCHPC's Maternal and Child Health Leadership Skills Development Series(MCHLDS) and contributing to a study examining the influence of state newborn screening programs on survival of children with sickle cell disease. Previously, Ms. Ruderman served as a project director for the WCHPC's Capacity Assessment for State Title V (CAST-5) and Early Childhood System Building Tool, and was a staff member of the national Evaluation of Fetal and Infant Mortality Review programs. Ms. Ruderman is also an independent consultant to organizations working to improve public health services for women, children, and families. She received her master's degree in Maternal and Child Health from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Catherine Hess, MSW, has a solid track record of state and national policy and program leadership spanning nearly three decades. She initiated and led a family health policy office for Massachusetts' state health department. Among other results, this office's work helped translate data and research into new, nationally recognized programs to reduce infant mortality. Under her 14-year leadership as its first executive director, the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) developed widely disseminated and extensively utilized policy analyses and tools. The AMCHP team also created multiple methods to help states apply knowledge to programs. At NASHP, Catherine now oversees work on children's health coverage, serving as the Director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Maximizing Enrollment for Kids national program, as well as work related to health centers, health systems performance and other state health policy issues.

Karen VanLandeghem, MPH, has nearly twenty years experience in health and human service policy and program development and government relations with expertise in public health systems, maternal and child health, public health insurance, early childhood and adolescent health, and coalition building. She spent eleven years in Washington, D.C. where she worked for national children's health and education organizations, including as the assistant executive director of the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs. Currently, she operates a consulting business based in the Chicago metropolitan area that works with national, federal, and state entities to improve and advance policies, programs and services that support women, children, youth and their families, particularly those who are low-income. Clients have included the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Health Resources and Services Administration as part of the Child Health Insurance Research Initiative (CHIRI); The National Governors Association; The American Academy of Pediatrics; Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families; The National Academy for State Health Policy; the National Institute for Healthcare Management Foundation; and the Illinois Children's Mental Health Partnership. Ms. VanLandeghem is on the faculties of the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Women's and Children's Health Policy Center, and the University of Illinois, Chicago, School of Public Health. Ms. VanLandeghem is the author of numerous reports and publications on child and family health policies and best practices. In 2000, she was the recipient of the American Public Health Association's Young Professional Award for outstanding achievement and leadership in maternal and child health. She received her Masters of Public Health from the University of Michigan.