National Institute Sponsors Professor Chatterji's Project

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development has decided to sponsor Professor Pinka Chatterji's research project “Effects of Medicaid expansions on infant health among Native Americans” joint with Professor Kate Strully from Sociology and Professor Larry Schell from Anthropology over the course of May 1, 2021 through April 30, 2023.

The project aims to: (1) Estimate the effects of Medicaid expansions on birth outcomes among Native American(NA) mothers, testing whether effects differ for NA mothers relative to mothers from other racial-ethnic groups; (2) Evaluate whether Medicaid has differing impacts on infant health depending on the attributes of the counties in which mothers reside; and; (3) Estimate the effects of Medicaid on plausible mechanisms linked to birth outcomes, specifically, insurance coverage, prenatal care, smoking and weight gain during pregnancy, and maternal health risk factors during pregnancy.