Karen Winters, Ph.D.
University
of Mississippi Medical Center
Junior Investigator, Vulnerable Populations
Project Title: Examining racial variation in persistently and episodically high out-of-pocket health care expenses and financial burden associated with chronic illness
"This New Connections award has impacted my professional development by giving me an opportunity to interact with experts in research design and statistical methods who can help me improve my research skills."
Project Description
Winters will examine racial differences in persistently and episodically high out-of-pocket health care expenses and financial burden among patients with and without chronic health conditions. She will use an observational, exploratory design and secondary data from the 2000-2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.
Winters will seek to 1) Identify appropriate measures of high out-of-pocket health care expenses and financial burden based on race and chronic illness status; 2) Examine factors associated with persistently and episodically of high OOP health care expense and financial burden based on race and chronic illness status; and 3) Examine five-year trends in high out-of-pocket health care expense and financial burden.
Biography
Karen Winters, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of nursing at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. Her research interests include racial disparities in health and access to care.
Her dissertation research involved the use of data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to examine racial differences in health insurance status on health care utilization and expenditures among non-elderly persons with cardiovascular disease. She received a postdoctoral supplement with the Jackson Heart Study and she has worked with the Jackson Heart Study investigators to develop instruments to gather data on health care access and use of health services.
Winters earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Health Sciences from the University of Mississippi Medical Center. She has a masters degree in nursing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a bachelor of science in nursing from Texas Christian University.
