Faculty Profile: Al Headen
Headen to Serve on NIH Advisory Council
by anna rzewnicki
Headen brings economist’s perspective to health care dialogue.
Racial and ethnic disparities in health care have persisted in the United States, even in the face of economic growth, says Alvin E. Headen, Jr., associate professor economics at North Carolina State University’s College of Management.
“Why do they persist, even with rises in income? What social and economic factors are contributing to this?” he asks. Such questions have helped to guide his research as an economist for more than two decades.
Most recently, Headen explored the topic with seven fellow researchers at a January 2007 session that he organized in conjunction with the National Economic Association meeting in Chicago. The title of their session was “Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities: Twenty Years after the Initiative.”
Part of two national health care discussions
In the coming years, Headen will be part of two national health care discussions. He was recently appointed to the National Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NACMHD), a part of the National Institutes of Health.
He also is participating in 'Cost-over-Care Health Delivery,' a project that is promoting a national dialogue on the need for an outcome-focused, patient-value approach to health delivery.
The National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) was established in 2000 “to
promote minority health and to lead, coordinate, support, and assess the NIH effort to reduce and ultimately eliminate health disparities,” according to the law that established the center.
The NCMHD conducts and supports basic, clinical, social, and behavioral research, promotes research infrastructure and training, fosters emerging programs, disseminates information, and reaches out to minority and other health disparity communities.
The NCMHD Advisory Council provides advice, assists and consults with, and makes recommendations to the director of the center on matters relating to its activities and mission. With its expanded authority to grant awards and contracts, NCMHD continues the work begun by the former NIH Office of Research on Minority Health
“I am particularly interested in guiding additional research toward a focus on two questions,” Headen said. “First, how much progress has been made in reducing the persistent racial and ethnic disparities in health, and second what, if any, factors have contributed most to changes in health disparity?”
The NIH has typically focused on science-related research, he said. “It’s important to have an economist involved now, because health outcomes depend on both medical sciences and practice, and on patient and provider choices in response to economic incentives.” His term on the advisory council continues through February 2010.
Cost-over-Care Health Delivery
Headen's research also is part of the ‘Cost-over-Care Health Delivery’ dialogue that is being led by Louis Sullivan, M.D., former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), president emeritus of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga., and a charter member of the National Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
The campaign is sponsored by Pfizer, Inc., and includes several health-related organizations as partners. Headen attended the campaign’s June 27 kickoff in Washington, D.C.
Both activities are well aligned with Headen’s career that has centered on the economics of health care and particularly health care for minorities. Prior to joining NC State’s College of Management, Headen held economist positions with Blue Cross/Blue Shield and the American Medical Association.
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