Health & Healthcare Policy
Analyzing the financing, institutional structures, and behavioral dimensions of American healthcare, and asking whether the system’s design choices ultimately improve health and share benefits equitably.
Overview
Faculty work spans two connected dimensions of health policy. On the systems side, research examines how health insurance markets are designed and regulated, studying Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance with attention to how coverage decisions, plan design, and reimbursement structures affect access and cost. This connects to questions about how hospitals, providers, and public programs deliver care in practice, and how regulatory and legislative decisions translate into real-world outcomes. On the population side, faculty examine health behaviors and outcomes as phenomena shaped by policy, economics, and social context, studying why people make the health choices they do, how social insurance programs affect long-term wellbeing, and whether the benefits of the healthcare system are equitably distributed.
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Tim LaytonAssociate Professor of Public Policy and EconomicsLayton’s research focuses on the economics of health insurance markets, with a particular focus on markets and social health insurance programs for low-income households. His research involves a mix of empirical and conceptual work studying how and why health insurance markets often struggle to provide the contracts consumers want at prices they can afford.
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Christopher J. RuhmProfessor of Public Policy and EconomicsRuhm’s recent research has focused on the role of government policies in helping parents with young children balance the competing needs of work and family life, and on examining how various aspects of health are produced – including the growth and sources of drug poisoning deaths in the United States, the rise in obesity and the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and health.
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Melanie Anne EgorinProfessor of Practice in Public PolicyEgorin served most recently as assistant secretary for legislation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where she was the principal advisor to the HHS secretary and the liaison for members of Congress and their staff across the broad range of issues handled by the department.
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Sebastian Tello TrilloAssociate Professor of Public Policy and EconomicsTello Trillo studies health policy in the U.S and Latin America, with a particular focus on understanding how policies affect individuals’ health behaviors and economic outcomes.
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Andrew J. WilsonAssistant Professor of Public Policy and EconomicsAndrew Wilson is an assistant professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. His research combines tools from economics and Earth science to answer questions related to our management of the global commons and environmental health.
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Derek WuAssistant Professor of Public Policy and EconomicsDerek Wu is an assistant professor of public policy and economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Wu’s research interests lie in labor and public economics, with focusing on poverty and inequality, the effects of government programs, and the economics of education.