Lizzy Simmons
I am interested in how policy impacts access to quality maternity care and maternal and neonatal health outcomes. My dissertation research is assessing the impact of state-level Medicaid reimbursement policies on access to midwifery care, and quantifying the number of adverse birth outcomes that could be averted if access to midwifery care were increased in the United States.
Before coming to UNC for my doctoral studies, I completed my MPH at Boston University School of Public Health and then worked as a research fellow for a large maternal and neonatal health registry. Since coming to UNC, I have worked on a study using adjustment techniques to improve the quality of facility-based estimates of essential maternal and child health intervention coverage. I have also worked worked on a study using group-based trajectory methodology to identify countries with similar childhood mortality trajectories over the past three decades in order to identify programmatic areas on which to intervene to decrease childhood mortality rates, and am currently conducitng a similar analysis assessing programmatic areas that impact prevalence of modern contraceptive use.
Research Interests
maternal health; health policy