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CUNY SPH Assistant Professor Naomi Zewde was awarded a two-year, $250,000 grant funded through a Policies for Action special call for proposals to advance health equity by actively seeking new perspectives from the policy research field. Policies for Action is a signature research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Zewde’s project will explore whether private insurance policies result in greater health care for the patient.
With this project, Zewde seeks to find out whether individuals with private insurance are simply paying more for the same coverage, or whether publicly insured patients lack access to the same amount of care.
“Are they having fewer doctor visits or fewer therapies in general given their particular health conditions?” Zewdie asks. “Either way, policy makers and the public electorate need to know.”
Zewde’s research centers on economic inequality in wealth and in health insurance and examines the ability of public policies to reduce these inequalities. Her work has been published in scholarly journals including Health Affairs, the American Journal of Public Health, and the Review of Black Political Economy, as well as in popular press outlets including Vox, the Washington Post, and NBC News. Zewde completed a postdoctoral fellowship in social work at Columbia University and is formerly a fellow at the US Department of Health and Human Services. She holds a PhD in health policy from Penn State University and an MPH and BA from Emory.
