Recent Publications

Thomas KC, Annis IE, DeJong NA, Christian RB, Davis SA, Hughes PM, Prichard BA, Prichard JR, Allen PS, Gettinger JS, Morris DN, Eaker KB. Psychotropic Polypharmacy in High Need Children and Neighborhood Context, Psychiatric Services, 2024 Sep 11:appips20230639. Epub ahead of print.

Graaf G, Kitchens K, Sweeney M, Thomas KC. Outcomes that Matter to Youth and Families in Behavioral Health Services, Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 2024 Sep 13. Epub ahead of print.

Sleath BL, Beznos B, Carpenter D, Thomas KC, Annis IE, Tudor G, Garcia N, Adjei A, Anastopoulos A, Leslie L, Coyne I. A pre-visit video/question prompt list intervention to increase youth question-asking about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder during pediatric visits, Patient Education and Counseling, 2024 Oct;127:108320. Epub 2024 May 31.

Hughes PM, Graaf G, Gigli K, deJong N, McGrath R, Thomas KC. Reductions in Pediatric Mental Health Care Disparities Associated with Scope-of-Practice Expansions. Community Mental Health Journal, 2024 Jul 1. Epub ahead of print.

Ellis AR, Howard K, Raghunandan R, Thomas KC, Cryer-Coupet QR, Weller BE. How to Use Discrete Choice Experiments to Capture Stakeholder Preferences in Social Work Research, Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 2024 (in press)

Hughes PM, Nisnik JD, McGrath RE, Tak CR, Christian RB, Sleath BL, Thomas KC. Assessing the Safety and Efficacy of Prescribing Psychologists in New Mexico and Louisiana, American Psychologist, Jul 25. Epub ahead of print.

Hughes PM, Thomas KC. Generational Differences in Latent Classes of Exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences, Children and Youth Services Review, 2024 (in press)

Hendy LE, Spees LP, Tak C, Carpenter DM, Thomas KC, Roberts MC. An Evaluation of the Cost-Effectiveness of Population Genetic Screening for Familial Hypercholesterolemia in US Patients, Atherosclerosis, 2024 Apr 16;393:117541. Epub ahead of print.

Hughes PM, McGrath R, Phillips D, Warner D, Thomas KC. Assessing Psychologists’ Intentions to Become Licensed Prescribers in Pennsylvania Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2024 (in press)

Hughes PM, Nisnik JD, McGrath RE, Tak CR, Christian RB, Sleath BL, Thomas KC. Demographics and Clinical Characteristics of Patients of Prescribing Psychologists, Psychiatrists, and Primary Care Physicians, American Psychologist, 2024 Apr 18. Epub ahead of print.

Graaf G, Kitchens K, Sweeney M, Thomas KC. Behavioral Health Services Outcomes that Matter Most to Caregivers of Children, Youth and Young Adults with Mental Health Needs, Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2024 Feb 1;21(2):172.

Hughes PM, Graaf G, Gigli K, deJong NA, McGrath R, Thomas KC. Pediatric Mental Health Care and Scope-of-Practice Expansions, Adm Policy Ment Health. 2024 Feb 13.

Hughes PM, McGrath RE, Thomas KC. Simulating the Impact of Psychologist Prescribing Authority Policies on Unmet Need for Mental Health Care. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice (in press)

Hughes PM, Easterly C, Thomas KC, Shea CM, Domino M. North Carolina Medicaid System Perspectives on Substance Use Disorder Treatment Policy Changes during the COVID-19 Pandemic, J Addict Med. 2024 Mar-Apr 01;18(2):e1-e7.

Schweiger J, Carpenter D, Thomas KC, Garcia N, Adjei A, Lee C, Tudor G, Sleath BL. The Development of a Video Intervention to Motivate Teens to Ask Providers Questions About ADHD, Cogent Psychology, 2024 (in press)

Hughes PM, Annis IE, McGrath R, Thomas KC. Psychotropic Prescribing Across Professions: 2016-2019, Psychiatric Services (in press)

Annis IE, DeJong NA, Christian RB, Davis SA, Hughes PM, Thomas KC. Neighborhood Context, Children’s Health and Healthcare Outcomes: A Comprehensive Analysis of National Survey Data, Health Affairs Scholar, Volume 1, Issue 3, September 2023, qxad038, https://doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxad038

October 14, 2024

A new paper in Psychiatric Services by Kathleen C. Thomas, PhD, in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy (DPOP), raises concerns about disparities in care in children with high needs. The paper describes psychotropic polypharmacy, the use of multiple psychotropic drugs to treat a patient, and its association with neighborhood context in a cohort of children with psychiatric conditions, intellectual and developmental disability, and complex medical conditions living in North Carolina…Read More

First-of-its-kind nationwide analysis of children’s health care and neighborhood impact

October 9, 2023

A new descriptive analysis from the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy (DPOP) at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy found that children living in lower opportunity neighborhoods, areas that lack the vital conditions necessary for health, wealth and well-being, … Read more

Kathleen C Thomas, PhD, MPH highlighted in UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Impact Report 2022-2023.

… she aims to improve access to, and quality of, mental health services. Her work has led to state and federal policy change and intervention uptake to accomplish those goals. December, 2023

Invited expert. PCORI investigators to update PCORI’s Engagement Rubric, a model for researchers and stakeholders to form meaningful partnerships in research hosted by the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care (IPFCC), May 2022.

Kathleen C Thomas, Ph.D., MPH of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy will lead a comparative effectiveness research study to improve health outcomes for youth with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) and their parents through two-parent peer-group interventions, one parent-directed and one adding advocacy skills training, December, 2021.

Workgroup Member, Amplifying Peer Voices in Mood Disorders Research: A Convening to Advance Peer Priorities and Partnerships, jointly hosted by the Institute of Patient-and Family-Centered Care and the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, June, 2021

Thomas KC. Using Health Data to Understand and Improve Children’s Mental Health Service Use, invited presentation, Oregon State University, College of Public Health and Human Sciences, February 21, 2020.

Faculty

Robert B. Christian, MD. – Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics.

As a physician with training in General Pediatrics and Adult/Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and as someone who has spent much of his clinical time working in interdisciplinary teams, I hold strongly to the notion that any one lens is far too narrow a tool through which to view patients. This is especially important when it comes to working with children, adolescents, and adults who have both neuro-developmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorders, Fragile X, or Angelman Syndrome and severe behavioral/emotional/psychiatric challenges such as anxiety, aggression, or self-injury. In my role as director of the Behavioral Medicine Clinic at The Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (CIDD) in the UNC School of Medicine, I lead a team to evaluate and address these challenges. There is a clear need for effectiveness research regarding the limited tools we do have in this realm and this need drives much of my work.

Neal deJong, MD, MPH – Associate Professor, General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Dr. deJong is a pediatrician who specializes in care of children with multiple complex medical needs. His research focuses on the care these children and families receive as they balance between their primary care and specialty care physicians, such as effective long-term plans of care for children with chronic conditions. Currently, Dr. deJong’s research is focused on children with inflammatory bowel disease and reducing the number of hospital and emergency room visits associated with chronic disease.

Scott Davis, PhD – Research Assistant Professor, Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy.

The goal of his work is to identify optimal methods to increase patient self-efficacy in chronic health condition management, for example to promote successful medical visits for autistic adults. He plans to identify evidence-based methods that can be implemented and disseminated in different chronic conditions. His current focus is on engaging autistic adults in participatory research to inform interventions, learning the perspectives of the target population to adapt interventions appropriately, and testing the effectiveness of interventions for autistic adults in clinical trials.

 Andrea Goodwin, PhD, MA, MA.

Andrea “Andi” Goodwin is a recent PhD graduate in Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Andi works to identify the association between social stratification and health disparities across the life course. More specifically, she is interested in the relationship between race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender and caregiving in the US context. Her dissertation research focuses on the physiological and mental health of mid-life US women who serve as informal caregivers to elderly adults, possibly while simultaneously caring for dependent children, and the mitigating effects of health services and social support.  Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she earned a Master of Arts in Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2020 and Morgan State University in 2011, as well as a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Exercise and Sport Sciences from the University of Florida in 2001 and 2003, respectively.

Phillip Hughes, PhD, MS – Research Assistant Professor, Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy.

His research interests center around mental health services and substance use treatment with a focus on improving access to care through policy. In particular, his current research examines how scope-of-practice issues, such as prescriptive authority, impact the availability and quality of treatment services. Secondary lines of research include outcomes of state-level opioid policies and how the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (a risk factor for mental health and substance use disorders) have changed over time. To date, he has worked on projects covering a breadth of topics, including studies on opioid policies, insurance networks, adverse childhood experiences, and psychotropic polypharmacy. These projects focus on a wide range of populations, such as people with disabilities, lgbtq+ individuals, and children with special healthcare needs. His overarching goal is to improve access to quality, equitable mental health care and substance use treatment services.

Khalilah Robinson Johnson, PhD, MS, OTR/L. – Assistant Professor Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy.

Dr. Johnson has a demonstrated record of commitment as a service provider, social and disability justice advocate, occupational science and occupational therapy educator, and researcher working with adults with IDD. Her research interests are a direct result of 15 years of clinical experiences as a registered and licensed occupational therapist. As a health sciences researcher, she has used mixed methods approaches with adults with IDD and service providers from minoritized backgrounds, engaged in community-based participatory research with adults with disabilities in under-resourced communities, and performed secondary data analysis of IDD related healthcare data. Her published work focused on racism and racial equity in intellectual and developmental disabilities research and practice, the sociocultural experiences of disability of people from racially minoritized backgrounds, institutionalization of people with IDD, and occupational therapy service provision. Dr. Johnson is the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Health Equity Scholar Award where Dr. Thomas serves as primary mentor.

Camilia Kamoun, MD, MSME – Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, UNC School of Medicine.

Dr. Kamoun specializes in pediatric endocrinology. She earned her MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016. She completed a Pediatric Residency at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in 2019 and a Pediatric Endocrinology Fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2022. Also, in 2022 Dr. Kamoun completed her Masters Degree in Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. She conducts transdisciplinary clinical and bioethics research on the intersection of clinical care and biological and societal understanding of sex and gender. Her current research centers on evidence-based and ethical care in early female puberty.

Research Specialists

Izabela Annis, MS – Senior Data Analyst, Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy. Senior Data Analyst, Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy. I am involved in studies that: (1) investigate comparative treatment effects on patient centered outcomes, (2) aim to develop new and improve existing machine learning methods that predict infrequent health outcomes and individual treatment effects, (2) assess the effectiveness of targeted interventions in vulnerable and unserved populations.  I work with large administrative databases:  Medicare claims, electronic health records sourced from UNC Health Care system, Medicaid claims, as well as many other cross-disciplinary research resource files such as GIS files, US Census files, drug databases, and data from national (MEPS, NHANES, etc.) and local surveys.  I also participate in training PhD students and departmental fellows, helping them with statistical and programming problems.  I enjoy working with data, solving complex programming problems and applying a variety of statistical methods to answer research questions.

Kate Slate, MA – Project Coordinator.

Kate Slate has a master’s degree from the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media where she wrote about children who have autism spectrum disorder and roadblocks families may encounter along the way in terms of a diagnosis and care. At the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Kate works to recruit study participants and convey our work through our website.

Avery White – Project Coordinator.

Avery has a BA in psychology from UNC where he became interested in research. He also established a tutoring program for high school students who found distance-learning during the covid pandemic difficult. At the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Avery works to recruit study participants, builds online surveys, works through technical challenges to collect novel smartphone data, and codes data for mixed methods analyses..

Graduate Students and Pre-Doctoral Fellows