In fall 2016 four students in ECO 350 Health Economics applied for Undergraduate Research Grants to support ideas they developed in class. All four were awarded grants and pursued their projects throughout the spring. Awardee Kimberly Drangeid studied medical adherence among asthma patients. She became interested in the topic when she learned medical nonadherence is responsible for an estimated 3 to 10% of all healthcare costs and many chronic asthma patients are nonadherent. Her research investigates whether switching insurance plans, which has become increasingly common after healthcare reform, affects adherence among adult asthma patients. Although her findings were not conclusive, in the process of her work Kim learned what it takes to conduct a careful and thorough health policy analysis and wrestled with the idea of differentiating causal from correlational evidence.
Read the full text of her paper, published in the UWL Journal of Undergraduate Research.
Learn more about opportunities for Undergraduate Research.
