Survey-Reported Coverage in 2019-2022 and Implications for Unwinding Medicaid Continuous Eligibility.
McIntyre A, Smith RB, Sommers BD.
JAMA Health Forum. 2024 Apr 05. 5(4):e240430. PMID: 38578627
Huntley Quelch Professor of Health Care Economics
Health Policy and Management
Professor of Medicine
Medicine-Brigham and Women's Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Dr. Sommers is a health economist and a physician whose main research interests are health policy for vulnerable populations, the uninsured, and the health care safety net. He is the Huntley Quelch Professor of Health Care Economics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the Outstanding Dissertation Award, Alice Hersh New Investigator Award, the 2015 Article-of-the-Year Award, and the 2017 Health Services Research Impact Award from AcademyHealth, a preeminent national association of health policy researchers; and the Outstanding Junior Investigator Award from the Society of General Internal Medicine. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019. His research has been published in leading journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Journal of Health Economics, and Health Affairs. His research has been profiled in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and National Public Radio. He has testified before Congress and advised state Medicaid programs.
Dr. Sommers has served in the federal government in multiple leadership roles. In January 2021, he was appointed by President Biden as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and he served in that role until early 2023. From 2022-2023, he was appointed to lead ASPE as the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary. Previously, he served as a Senior Advisor in ASPE from 2011-2016, and continues in 2023 to serve in a part-time capacity as a Senior Counselor to the Assistant Secretary.
He received a PhD in Health Policy from Harvard and an MD from Harvard Medical School.
Member
National Academy of Medicine
Impact Award for Health Services Research
AcademyHealth
Alice Hersh New Investigator Award
AcademyHealth
Article of the Year Award
AcademyHealth
Outstanding Junior Investigator
Society for General internal Medicine
Teaching Citation
Harvard School of Public Health
Hamolsky Award
Society for General Internal Medicine Annual Meeting
Best Oral Presentation in Scientific Abstracts
Society for General Internal Medicine, New England Region
Faculty Mentor Award
Brigham & Women’s Department of Medicine
Best Residents and Fellows at Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Resident Mentor Award
Brigham & Women’s Department of Medicine
Robert Ebert Award in Primary Care Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Daniel E. Ford Award in Health Services Research
Johns Hopkins, Division of General Medicine
National Dissertation Award
AcademyHealth
McIntyre A, Smith RB, Sommers BD.
JAMA Health Forum. 2024 Apr 05. 5(4):e240430. PMID: 38578627
Sinaiko AD, Sommers BD.
JAMA Intern Med. 2024 Mar 01. 184(3):234-235. PMID: 38252433
Gordon SH, Chen L, DeLew N, Sommers BD.
Health Aff (Millwood). 2024 Mar. 43(3):336-343. PMID: 38437599
Goldman A, Sommers BD.
JAMA Health Forum. 2024 Jan 05. 5(1):e240095. PMID: 38236619
Wilcock AD, Kissler S, Mehrotra A, McGarry BE, Sommers BD, Grabowski DC, Grad YH, Barnett ML.
JAMA Health Forum. 2024 Jan 05. 5(1):e235044. PMID: 38277170
McGarry BE, Sommers BD, Barnett ML.
JAMA. 2023 11 28. 330(20):2022. PMID: 38015222
McIntyre A, Aboulafia G, Sommers BD.
N Engl J Med. 2023 Dec 14. 389(24):2215-2217. PMID: 37991840
Mensah MO, Sommers SR, Sommers BD.
JAMA Health Forum. 2023 10 06. 4(10):e234099. PMID: 37796522
Xu L, Welch WP, Sheingold S, De Lew N, Sommers BD.
Health Aff (Millwood). 2023 09. 42(9):1203-1211. PMID: 37669490
McGarry BE, Sommers BD, Wilcock AD, Grabowski DC, Barnett ML.
JAMA. 2023 08 08. 330(6):561-563. PMID: 37450293
Far more people were enrolled in Medicaid during the pandemic than who reported in surveys having coverage—a discrepancy suggesting that many people were unaware that their coverage had continued under federal policies, according to a new Harvard Chan…
Medicare patients who were at the highest risk for severe COVID-19—such as Black patients, patients older than 90, and patients living in nursing homes—received antiviral treatments less often than those who had the least risk, according to a…
Physician and health economist Benjamin Sommers spent two years on leave from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to serve in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Even though nursing home residents face high risk of severe infection or death from COVID-19, nursing homes have underused antiviral treatments, even after Paxlovid, a highly effective antiviral pill, became widely available, according to a new study co-authored…
Trissa Lyman, MPH ’23, has found nursing extremely rewarding. She’s passionate about bringing more people into the field.