# Evaluating Reproductive Health Policy in Medicaid Populations: Application of Novel Methods for Heterogenous Treatment Effect Estimation

> **NIH NIH K01** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2024 · $133,839

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
This NIMHD Mentored Research Scientist Career Development Award (K01) for Dr. Jackie Ellison, an assistant
professor of health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health,
will establish Dr. Ellison as an independent health services and policy researcher with expertise in evaluating
the heterogeneous effects of reproductive health policies in Medicaid.
Research proposed for this K01 award will leverage the timing and geographic variation of emerging
reproductive health policies to estimate their effects on contraceptive method use, births, and adverse perinatal
health outcomes nationally among persons with Medicaid. Using traditional prespecified subgroup analyses
and newer, data-driven methods for causal subgroup identification, Dr. Ellison will also identify the patient
populations that are most impacted by these policies. Socially, economically, and medically marginalized
patients experience greater barriers to exercising reproductive autonomy, and overwhelmingly bear the burden
of adverse perinatal health outcomes. Consequently, there is an urgent need to not only evaluate the public
health effects of emerging reproductive health policies, but to understand the distribution of policy effects
across diverse patient populations, including those with multiple marginalized identities. Findings from this
research will be disseminated to various stakeholders with the goal of informing evidence-based reproductive
health policy at the federal and state-levels, and within state Medicaid programs.
This project draws on Dr. Ellison’s quantitative training, knowledge of reproductive health policy, financing, and
service delivery, and prior research on health inequities. This work will extend Dr. Ellison’s scholarship into the
fields of perinatal health and Medicaid while incorporating new statistical methods for assessing
heterogeneous treatment effects. Therefore, for this K01 award, Dr. Ellison will engage in training and career
development activities that focus on acquiring expertise in working with the modernized Medicaid data,
perinatal health services research, and advanced statistical and machine learning methods for causal
inference and causal subgroup identification. This project places an emphasis on research translation and
dissemination. With mentorship from a multi-disciplinary team of NIH-funded investigators, Dr. Ellison will also
focus on applying training in these areas to health policy research more generally. This training plan
complements the proposed research and will equip Dr. Ellison to transition to independence, leveraging the
methods and expertise developed in the proposed research with the goal of improving reproductive health
outcomes and autonomy by interrogating the distribution of policy effects across populations.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10864352
- **Project number:** 1K01MD020010-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** JACQUELINE ELLISON
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $133,839
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-05-27 → 2028-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10864352

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10864352, Evaluating Reproductive Health Policy in Medicaid Populations: Application of Novel Methods for Heterogenous Treatment Effect Estimation (1K01MD020010-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10864352. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*