HEAL Prevention Cooperative Webinar Series: The Dollars and Sense of Costing a Substance Use Prevention Program: Learnings from a Research Cooperative

Diana Bowser, Sc.D., M.P.H., is the Associate Dean for Research and Integrated Science at the Connell School of Nursing. Dr. Bowser has 20 years of experience in health system analysis related to health economics, health policy, and using econometric methods and costing techniques to evaluate health system changes in the United States, Latin America, and Africa. She is especially interested in health system issues and research related to health financing, cost impacts on efficiency and effectiveness, catastrophic health payments, evaluation, income inequality, quality improvement, workforce, decentralization, and resource allocation in the health sector, and health and economic growth. She is part of two NIDA funded projects that are part of the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative (HEAL) examining the prevention and treatment options for individuals with substance use disorders.  Dr. Bowser is also the Course Director for several executive training programs at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  

David W. Hutton, Ph.D, is a Professor of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, most related to the economics of health and public health interventions (cost-effectiveness).  Dr. Hutton has worked closely with the World Health Organization on hepatitis B economics and policy, Health and Human Services on the economics of vaccine-preventable diseases, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on policies related to hepatitis B and vaccine-preventable diseases.  Most recently, his work has been used by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to inform vaccination policy for respiratory syncytial virus and COVID-19.

Tansel Yilmazer, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Consumer Sciences in the Department of Human Sciences at The Ohio State University. She is an economist specializing in health economics and policy. Her research focuses on economic evaluations of interventions and health-related policies aimed at improving the wellbeing of vulnerable and underserved populations. Dr. Yilmazer is the leading economist on several NIDA-funded projects that target youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) with the goal of preventing chronic homelessness into adulthood and reducing substance use, HIV risk, and physical and mental health struggles. She provides cost analysis for randomized trials of Rapid Rehousing, Strengths-Based Outreach and Advocacy, and Cognitive Therapy for Suicide Prevention for YEH.

Rosanna Smart, Ph.D, is a Senior Economist at RAND, Codirector of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, and Professor of Policy Analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research in applied microeconomics focuses on issues related to health behaviors, illicit markets, drug policy, and the determinants of gun violence. Dr. Smart’s current drug policy research studies a variety of issues related to better understanding substance use behaviors in the context of complex policy changes, including evaluating the implications of evolving cannabis market dynamics, and understanding trends and patterns of polysubstance use. Her other strand of research focuses on informing effective gun policy in the United States, evaluating the differential effects of gun policy across different populations and communities, and identifying interventions that can reduce gun violence; within this work, she serves as codirector of RAND's Gun Policy in America initiative.