Carolin Hagelskamp, Ph.D. and David Schleifer, Ph.D.

Carolin Hagelskamp, Ph.D., Vice President and Director of Research and David Schleifer, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, both at the nonprofit, nonpartisan research and engagement organization Public Agenda, are currently co-principal investigators on a HCFO study that will be the first nationally representative study of Americans’ use and non-use of health care price information. Using data from a national survey, focus groups, and interviews, the research will answer questions including: 

• What percentage of Americans has tried to find out the prices of health care services in advance?
• What percentage of Americans has compared prices for two or more providers of health care services?
• What sources are Americans using to find price information?
• Does price information affect consumers’ choices of health care service providers?
• What factors – such as demographics, insurance benefit design, health status and experiences with the health care system – are correlated with price information-seeking and with price comparing?
• What do consumers who have not sought price information say about the barriers they perceive to seeking prices and their interest in that information?
• How aware are Americans about price variation in health care?
• Do Americans really believe that higher priced health care is necessarily higher quality?

The goal of the project is to generate a nationally representative benchmark of Americans’ use of and perspectives on price information. The findings will inform policymakers, insurers, employers and other health care purchasers, providers, consumer groups and price transparency vendors about the potential and the challenges of increasing consumer engagement with price information.

Dr. Hagelskamp joined Public Agenda in 2011 where she works on the development, management, and implementation of the organization’s quantitative and qualitative opinion research studies, and on collaborative projects between Public Agenda's research and public engagement departments.

She has held positions with a variety of organizations including the United Nations, the German Goethe Institute, and the Battersea Research Group in London. Her work has focused on the areas of adolescent development, education, immigration, parenting, work-family, workforce development, and health care.

Dr. Hagelskamp has a Master’s degree in Organizational and Social Psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Ph.D. in Community Psychology from New York University. She conducted her postdoctoral research at the Health, Emotion, and Behavior Laboratory at Yale University.

Since joining Public Agenda in 2013, Dr. Schleifer has worked on the development, management, and implementation of research studies and on collaborative projects between Public Agenda’s research and public engagement departments.  His work at Public Agenda includes research on health care, K-12 education, higher education and civic participation.

Dr. Schleifer holds a Ph.D. in sociology from New York University. His dissertation was about how and why food corporations invested in replacing trans fats.  Prior to joining Public Agenda, Dr. Schleifer conducted research at organizations including Columbia University Medical Center, the New York City Department of Health, the Hunger Project, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute and the Oregon Social Learning Center. He has conducted research on topics including public opinion about the overuse of medical tests and treatments, the FDA’s trans fat labeling policy, and for-profit colleges.

Dr. Schleifer was the John C. Haas fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in 2008-09 and a science policy writing fellow in Arizona State University’s To Think, To Write, To Publish program in 2012-13. His research has been published in a variety of academic and non-academic venues including PLoS One, Social Studies of Science, N+1, Technology and Culture, and Ars Medica. 

More information on Carolin Hagelskamp, Ph.D. can be found here.

More information on David Schleifer, Ph.D. can be found here.

More information about Hagelskamp and Schleifer’s HCFO-funded grant can be found here.

This project was funded as part of the Foundation’s solicitation “Understanding the Use and Impact of Price Data in Health Care.”