Martin Wegman, an NIH TL1 Predoctoral Fellow and an M.D. /Ph.D. student at the University of Florida, has been invited to present his paper, “Flexible Wellness Account Purchase Requests by Medicaid Enrollees with Co-Occurring Physical and Mental Illness,” during the Chair’s Forum at the 142nd American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
The Chair’s Forum, hosted by the Disability Section of the APHA, is a special invited session arranged by the section chair, which focuses on topics of particular importance in population health for persons with disabilities. This year, the forum will address the changing world of health care for people with disabilities caused by the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid expansion and innovations being implemented in several states.
“As we reviewed submissions for the overall Disability Section program, it became clear to me and the program committee that your proposals as described below would make a compelling Chair’s Forum,” wrote Anthony Cahill, Ph.D., chair of the APHA Disability Section and director of the division of disability and health policy at the University of New Mexico’s Center for Development and Disability, to Wegman and the rest of the invited panelists.
In his paper, Wegman examined how disabled Medicaid members enrolled in the WIN study used their flexible wellness funds to support personal health goals with Department of Health Outcomes and Policy faculty co-authors: Kim Case, research scientist; Jill Herndon, associate professor; Keith Muller, professor and affiliate faculty member; and Elizabeth Shenkman, professor and department chair. The findings provide new information on barriers and facilitators to health promotion for this population.