Publications
Community Health Initiatives
 "Lessons from Local Access Initiatives: Contributions and Challenges." Karen Minyard, Deborah Chollet, Laurie Felland, Lindsey Lonergan, Chris Parker, Tina Anderson-Smith, Claudia Lacson, and Jaclyn Wong, August 2007. Community health initiatives—locally crafted responses to health care access problems—have been steadfast in their efforts to connect uninsured and medically indigent people to health care services and health insurance. These programs assist in outreach, coordinate and integrate care, and help clients use limited resources efficiently. This report offers five case studies of community health initiatives that seek to improve access and coverage for those most likely to be uninsured: low-income, nonelderly adults.
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Abstinence Education
 "Impacts of the Heritage Keepers Life Skills Education Component." Melissa Clark, Christopher Trenholm, Barbara Devaney, Justin Wheeler, and Lisa Quay, August 2007. This report addresses one particular model for school-based abstinence education: a voluntary, character-based program designed to enhance a mandatory core abstinence education component of the Heritage Keepers program serving middle and high school youth in Edgefield, South Carolina. Findings indicate that the Life Skills Component had little or no impact on sexual abstinence or activity on youth already receiving the core abstinence education curriculum. However, youth in the Life Skills group were also no more likely than their counterparts in the control group to have engaged in unprotected sex. The component did affect certain potential mediators of teen sex, most notably expectations to abstain and views supportive of abstinence. It also had some impact on knowledge of the risks associated with teen sex.
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Working with Disability
 "Working with Disability: What Is the Demonstration to Maintain Independence and Employment (DMIE) and Who Is Participating?" Gilbert W. Gimm and Bob Weathers, August 2007. The sixth policy brief in a Mathematica series on working with disability looks at the Demonstration to Maintain Independence and Employment (DMIE), which allows states to provide Medicaid-equivalent or "wrap-around" coverage to supplement existing health insurance for workers with potentially disabling conditions. The brief reviews the rationale for the DMIE and describes programs and participants in four states—Hawaii, Kansas, Minnesota, and Texas.
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Medicaid Drug Issues
 "Utilization of, and Adherence to, Drug Therapy Among Medicaid Beneficiaries with Congestive Heart Failure." Ann D. Bagchi, Dominick Esposito, Myoung Kim, James Verdier, and Deo Bencio, Clinical Therapeutics, August 2007. Congestive heart failure (CHF) affects 4.8 million adult Americans, particularly those over age 65, and has been described as a "new epidemic." This article uses Medicaid Analytic eXtract data from four states to determine the number of Medicaid beneficiaries with CHF, identify the rate of CHF drug use, estimate adherence rates, examine factors associated with CHF drug use and adherence, and explore policy implications. Overall, 85 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries diagnosed with CHF had claims for at least one CHF medication; 15 percent had none. Among those with a drug claim, the mean number of claims per month was 1.4, and 26 percent had 4 or more. Based on the study's findings, state Medicaid agencies and Medicare prescription drug plans should consider designing targeted interventions that encourage better drug adherence among Medicaid beneficiaries with CHF, particularly men, those aged 65 and older, ethnic minorities, and patients with poor overall health status.
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Staff News and Changes
 Christopher Trenholm has been named associate director of health research for the Princeton office. An expert in risk reduction programs for youth, maternal and child health, and health insurance programs, he directed the company’s national evaluation of abstinence education programs. Read the release.
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 Barbara Devaney has been appointed senior vice president. She has been affiliated with Mathematica for 30 years and is a nationally recognized authority in maternal and child health, nutrition, and risk reduction programs for youth. Read the release.
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 Amy Johnson has been appointed senior vice president. Known for her expertise in issues related to at-risk youth and teaching and learning, she has played a major role in key welfare and education studies for the state of New Jersey, the U.S. Department of Education, and other state and federal agencies. Read the release.
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