Recent Publications

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, Journal of Addition Medicine, (in press)

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, Cogent Psychology, (in press)

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

Graaf G, Hughes PM, deJong NA, Thomas KC. Family support services and reported parent coping among caregivers of children with emotional, behavioral, or developmental disorders. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics (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 (in press)

Hynes DM, Govier DJ, Niederhausen M, Tuepker A, Laliberte AZ, McCready H, Hickok A, Rowneki M, Waller D, Cordasco KM, Singer SJ, McDonald KM, Slatore CG, Thomas KC, Maciejewski M, Battaglia C, Perla L. Understanding Care Coordination for Veterans with Complex Care Needs: Protocol of a Multiple-Methods Study to Build Evidence for an Effectiveness and Implementation Study, Frontiers in Health Services, 2023, August 3(0)

Hughes PM, Graaf G, Thomas KC. The NSCH Patient-Centered Medical Home Scale: A Measurement History, Critique, and Commentary. Children’s Health Care (in press)

Hughes PM, Graaf G, deJong NA, Thomas KC. Emotional Support among Parents of Children with Adverse Childhood Experiences. Journal of Pediatric Health Care (in press)

Wright M, Thomas KC, Carpenter DM, Lee C, Coyne I, Garcia N, Adjei A, Sleath BL. Co-designing a website with and for youth, so they can better manage their health. Patient Education and Counseling, May 9, 2023.

Hughes PM, McGrath R, Phillips D, Thomas KC. Examining Psychologist Prescriptive Authority as a Cost-Effective Strategy for Reducing Suicide Rates, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2023 54(4), 284–294.

Hughes PM, Annis IE, Christian RB, deJong NA, Davis SA, Thomas KC. Factors Associated with Substance Use Disorder among High-Need Adolescent and young Adults in North Carolina, North Carolina Medical Journal, (in press)

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. My long-term career goal 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. I plan to identify evidence-based methods that can be implemented and disseminated in different chronic conditions. My 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.

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.

Research Specialists

Izabela Annis, MS. 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.

Meriel Shire, MPH, MSW, Project Manager and public Health professional dedicated to improving maternal and child health outcomes through equity-focused systems level change and evidence-based population health approaches. Collaborative relationship-builder experienced in technical assistance delivery, project management, and continuous quality improvement in clinical and community settings.

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 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 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