CHPAMS’s Rising Scholar Best Paper Award is to recognize outstanding peer-reviewed publications authored by CHPAMS members who are in their early career. For the 2019 Award, we selected one winner from an institution in China and one winner from outsides of China to highlight the outstanding research that young members are doing around the world. We are delighted to announce the following two publications and their lead authors as the recipients of the 2019 CHPAMS Rising Scholar Best Paper Award!
Dr. Jie Chang, et al. “Assessment of non-prescription antibiotic dispensing at community pharmacies in China with simulated clients: a mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal study” The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Oct 2019; 19(12):1345-1354
This paper presented the results of a large-scale study using simulated clients to assess the non-prescription dispensing of antibiotics and relevant pharmacy practices at community pharmacies, both cross-sectionally in a sample of community pharmacies across six provinces in China in 2017 and longitudinally in a single province from 2011 to 2017. It revealed the situation, patterns, regional and temporal variations, and determinant factors of non-prescription dispensing of antibiotics and other related practices at community pharmacies in China. As antibiotics used without prescription are 'fueling superbugs', tackling non-prescription dispensing of antibiotics has been widely recognized as a crucial global initiative to combat resistance. The evidence provided by the paper has important implications for enhancing antibiotic stewardship at community levels in China and beyond. The findings also offer insights into the service quality gaps at community pharmacies in China, as community pharmacies that can provide qualified pharmacy services has the potential to become an important part of the health system.
The paper’s lead author, Dr. Jie Chang, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacy Administration and Clinical Pharmacy at Xi’an Jiaotong University. He obtained his PhD from Shandong University’s Center of Health Management and Policy at the end of 2014. He also trained at Peking University’s China Center for Health Development Studies during his years of doctoral studies and was a visiting researcher at the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of Pittsburgh from 2017 to 2018. Dr. Chang’s research interests lay in social, economic, policy, demographic, and environmental aspects of drug utilization and vaccination in populations, endeavoring to find more evidence to improve their use.
Dr. Xu Ji, et al. “Effect of Medicaid Disenrollment on Health Care Utilization Among Adults With Mental Health Disorders” Med Care. 2019 Aug; 57(8):574-583
In this paper, the authors estimated how health and mental health care utilization change when adult beneficiaries with mental illness lose Medicaid coverage, using the nationwide Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data and a rigorous quasi-experimental study design. The paper also examined how changes in health service use evolved over time while beneficiaries remain uninsured. This study found that loss of health insurance immediately after disenrollment from Medicaid led to a persistent disruption in the receipt of health care services for beneficiaries with mental illness. These results suggest that some enrollees may not have identified an alternative means of accessing care after disenrollment. The findings have important policy implications as states consider the future of their Medicaid programs in a dynamic policy landscape. With current economic pressures that may risk the potential benefits of Medicaid in the face of the COVID19 pandemic, this paper raises important considerations about the implications of Medicaid disenrollment for medically vulnerable populations.
The lead author, Dr. Xu Ji, is an assistant professor at the Department of Pediatrics of Emory School of Medicine and a faculty member at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA). Before joining Emory and CHOA, she served as a Prevention Effectiveness Fellow at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Ji received her PhD in health services research and health policy (economics track) from Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health in 2017. Her current research focuses on health insurance coverage (with a particular emphasis on Medicaid), access to and quality of care, and psychosocial outcomes for childhood, adolescent, and young adult cancer survivors.