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Recent Scientific Accomplishments Over the past five years, Evans has been part of five broad research programs: (1) The economic determinants of infant and child health; (2) The impact of socioeconomic status on health; (3) The social and economic impact of Indian gaming; (4) The causes and consequences of changing distribution of education resources; and (5) The delivery of health care. In the first research program, Evans and his coauthors use a series of quasi-experiments to isolate the determinants of infant and child health. Evans and Lien (2005) demonstrate the benefits of prenatal care by showing that a bus strike reduced prenatal care for inner city women and as a result, reduced the health of their infants. Lien and Evans (2005) show that large state cigarette excise tax hikes reduced maternal smoking and increased birth weights. Dee and Evans (2003) show that although increases in minimum legal drinking age laws reduced drinking among high school students, there was no change in educational attainment for those impacted by the law, calling into question whether lower high school graduation rates of teen drinkers is causal. Similar techniques are used to examine the second research area where Evans and Snyder (forthcoming) show that large legislated changes in Social Security payments greatly increased work and reduced elderly mortality, suggesting a health benefit of labor force attachment. In related work, Eibner and Evans (2005, 2004) demonstrate that holding income constant, mortality and health habits are negatively related to income-based measures of relative deprivation. Evans has completed four working papers that summarize the impact of Indian casinos on tribes and local communities. Evans continues a productive research program in the economics of education. Corcoran, Evans and Schwab have two papers which show that the quality of new teachers has fallen considerably since the 1960s. Zhang and Evans (forthcoming) demonstrate that earmarking lottery profits for education does not increase spending nearly to the degree the law intended. Finally, from topic (5), Evans and Kim (2006) examine the impact of nurse staffing ratios on the health outcomes of hospital patients while in two different papers, Evans and colleagues have examined how seniors have coped with the closing of Medicare HMOs in particular counties. Evans is currently the principal investigator (PI) on two NIH-supported R01 grants. The first examines the consequences of gaming on Indian reservations. Another is a recently awarded grant that examines the impact of legislated changes in postpartum length of hospital stays on maternal and infant health. Evans was a PI on a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation completed in 2004 that examined the impact of prenatal care on infant health and the impact of Social Security benefits on mortality. Evans was the PI on a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that examined the impact of nurse staffing levels on the health of hospital patients. Most of Evans's research over the next five years will be in health economics. Evans will complete the work associated with a recently-awarded R01 on postpartum hospital stays. He is also revising an R01 application that attempts to determine whether high mortality rates after the death of a spouse is a casual relationship. Evans and his colleague Mark Duggan have a large project that examines the medical and cost effectiveness of recent pharmaceutical advances in the Medicaid population. A grant proposal to fund this work has been submitted to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a working paper examining the case of anti-retrovirals for HIV/AIDS patients has also been completed. Evans also has a nascent research program on whether retirement impacts the health of the elderly using mandatory retirement laws as a source of exogenous variation in retirement. | ||||||||
Maryland Population Research Center
0124N Cole Student Activities Building (#162)
College Park, MD 20742
Phone: 301-405-6403
Fax: 301-405-5743