Donald Brannen, a Walden University Ph.D. in Public Health student, has been awarded the 2008 Best Ohio Health Policy Student Research Award by the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. Brannen, who lives in West Chester, Ohio, is a community epidemiologist for the Greene County Combined Health District. Brannen was honored for his co-authored paper, “Barriers to Utilization of Public Health Services.” His research identified the need for a federally qualified health center (FQHC) in a medically underserved area of Greene County. The co-authors of the paper were Mark McDonnell, Jonathan Boche and Robyn Fosnaugh.
Brannen said that his research yielded findings that involved social justice issues, including the fact that the inadequacy and inaccessibility of community health services were barriers to utilization of those services, and that an FQHC would relieve the future burden on local public health resources by providing for convenient, adequate and comprehensive care to all residents in the underserved area.
“The ‘so what’ is that almost everyone is … impacted by medical underservice,” Brannen says. “Any societal approach to the medical system must take a comprehensive approach that includes the interaction between local public health agencies’ clinical service and the medically underserved.” Brannen plans to use his doctoral degree to improve local public health agency performance through population-based research.
The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati funded the 2008 Health Policy Institute of Ohio Awards for Health Policy Research. The awards are given each year to honor outstanding research relevant to health policy in Ohio and carried out by Ohio-based researchers. All winners and winning institutions receive a monetary award. The Health Policy Institute of Ohio is an independent, nonpartisan organization that forecasts health trends, analyzes key health issues and communicates current research to Ohio policy-makers, state agencies and other decision-makers.
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