ICHP Awards

Dr. Mildred M. Maldonado-Molina received a K01 award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The project is titled "Alcohol Contextual Influences: Effects on Health Disparities and Mortality". Funding for the award is $617K for the period of 2/15/2009 to 1/31/2013.

This NIAAA Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K01) will allow Dr. Maldonado-Molina to develop a research program to reduce health disparities in alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences. With support from a K-award, Dr. Maldonado-Molina will become an advanced methodologist in the alcohol field in terms of analyses of hierarchical and intensively longitudinal data (i.e., hundreds of repeated observations across multiple groups nested in multiple levels). The proposed research uses hierarchical and intensive longitudinal data to examine whether alcohol exposure and alcohol policies might exacerbate or attenuate disparities in alcohol use and alcohol-related mortality across subgroups of the population (e.g. gender, ethnicity, age groups). The research plan is guided by two aims: (1) test effects of exposure and sources of alcohol (e.g., parents, friends, commercial) on trajectories of alcohol use among adolescents across gender and ethnic subgroups; and (2) test effects of selected alcohol policies in reducing health disparities in traffic crash mortality from 1976 to 2002.

Dr. Caprice Knapp will receive a Faculty Enhancement Opportunity (FEO) award for the Summer 2009 semester from the Office of the Provost. This award is in the amount of $15,021 and will allow Dr. Knapp to continue her work in pediatric palliative care.

August 8, 2008
Dr. Joseph Terza received $412,227 in funding from AHRQ. The study titled "Drug Coverage and Costs Offsets: Two-Part Models with Endogenous Treatment Effects" will investigate the existence and extent of costs offsets in hospital spending attributable to various types of prescription drug coverage (employer sponsored, Medigap, Medicaid, etc). The study results will yield important insights about the potential cost-offsets of some aspects of the new Medicare Part D prescription benefit.

July 15, 2008
Dr. Kelli A. Komro's grant, "Etiology of alcohol use and consequences among multi-ethnic urban youth," funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, was selected for co-funding from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Funding for this study is $1,828,354 and it will examine trajectories and multiple levels of influences on alcohol use among urban poor adolescents, explicitly comparing patterns of effects across ethnic and gender subgroups.

May 27, 2008
Dr. Mildred Maldonado-Molina received a $15,000 McKnight Junior Faculty Development Program Award from the Florida Education Fund. This faculty development award is designed to encourage excellence in teaching and research and will contribute toward Dr. Maldonado-Molina's research to understand health disparities and effects of policies and environments in alcohol-related morbidity and mortality among youth.

April 4, 2008
Dr. Jill Herndon received a $50,000 award titled "Estimating the Relationship between Drug Adherence and Cost and Utilization for Asthma Care in the Medicaid Population" from Rand/Merck. This study is to estimate the relationship between drug adherence and cost and utilization for asthma care in the Medicaid population.

March 12, 2008
Dr. Jill Herndon (Co-Investigator) along with Dr. Frank Catalanotto (Principal Investigator) in Dentistry received a contract titled "Physician Implemented Oral Disease Prevention" from the Health Foundation of South Florida for $20,000 for the period of 6/1/2008 to 5/31/2010. This project is to increase general awareness of pediatric oral health needs in Broward, Dade and Monroe counties, change Florida Agency for Health Care Administration policy on reimbursement of physicians to provide oral health screening and preventive procedures to children, assess and improve pediatric oral health knowledge among pediatricians and family physicians, increase the number of practicing pediatricians and family physicians who provide oral health screening and preventive services, and increase the number of children aged 0-4 who receive oral health screenings and preventive care.