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Department of Health Policy and Management
School of Public Health and Health Sciences
University of Massachusetts
Current Research Areas and Projects
Organizational Impacts on Health Care Quality and Equity for Women and Children
The Q4A Lab aims to understand how organizational characteristics influence health care quality and equity. Examples of our recently completed work include an NIH-funded study that used positive deviance methods to better understand why some pediatric practices score better on quality measures than others and an NIH-funded study that explored how organizational factors affect transitions of care for women diagnosed with hypertensive disorders during pregnancy.
Our current projects exploring this area of research include:
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​Determining the effect of Medicaid accountable care organizations on pediatric asthma quality of care, outcomes, and disparities in Massachusetts
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Identifying organizational factors that may explain why fluoride varnish application rates are low in pediatric primary care settings.
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Exploring LGBTQ+ youth experiences with healthcare via photovoice methodology
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Please read more about each of these studies on their respective pages.
Translating Evidence Into Policy and Practice: Implementation Science
Implementation research is an important aspect of the Q4A Lab's work. A recently completed mixed-methods implementation study our lab was part of aimed to identify barriers and facilitators to uptake of the ACCESS policy in MA, which required health insurers to cover prescriptions for short acting contraceptives a full 12 months.
Current implementation studies include:
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A multi-stakeholder study of the 2017 ACCESS Law (Act relative to advancing Contraceptive Coverage and Economic Security in our State) in Massachusetts, which allowed pharmacists to fill 12-month supplies of short-acting reversible contraceptive (SARC) methods. The first part of this study, which interviewed pharmacists across MA about the system, pharmacy, and patient levels that impact implementation was published February 2022 in the Journal of the American Pharmacists' Association. Forthcoming publications explore the perceptions of healthcare providers and individuals using SARCs.
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An analysis of local public health infrastructure across Massachusetts. This study resulted in an issue brief titled "Protecting Public Health and Preparing for the Next Pandemic that was shared in a January 2022 Massachusetts Health Policy Forum event. Read the Issue Brief here.
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​A study exploring implementation of an intervention to reduce inequities in access to kidney transplant for patients with end stage kidney failure in New Mexico.
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Implementation of postpartum depression screening and referral in pediatric primary care practices that serve families in Black, Latina/x, and lower-income populations and impacts of doula services on maternal outcomes of Black birthing people and their children.
Communication in Health Care
As part of our efforts to improve health care quality and equity, we examine the ways in which communication at multiple levels within the health care system and communities affect patient's experiences, well-being, and outcomes. This work includes use of shared decision-making in health care and has spanned topics such as communication about the HPV vaccine, how inter-organizational communication affects implementation of innovative programs in a new accountable care organization, and how communication about treatment options for atypical breast hyperplasia may affect women's decisions.
Community Engaged Research
Dr. Goff is co-lead of Project ACCCES: A Collaboration to Build Capacity for Community Engaged Research in Springfield. As part of project ACCCES, we facilitate community-academic-clinical research partnerships through trainings and by incorporating community engaged principles into much of our research. A current study will be testing the impact of doula support on disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality.
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