Johanna Catherine Maclean, Ph.D.

Johanna Catherine Maclean, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Economics at Temple University, uses health and economic theory to examine the health effects of public policies and employment. In particular, her research focuses on the influence of policy on substance use and other causes and consequences of substance use and mental health disorders, including the role of employment.

Dr. Maclean received her Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and holds a Masters in Economics from Dalhousie University. Prior to joining the Temple faculty, Dr. Maclean was an assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy and a Thomas Scattergood Scholar on behavioral health economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Some of her most recent publications have appeared in Social Science & Medicine, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and IZA Journal of Labor Policy.

In Dr. Maclean’s HCFO-funded grant, she and her colleagues are examining two value-based insurance design (VBID) programs offered by public employers in Oregon between 2009 and 2012.  These programs simultaneously increased cost-sharing for low-value services while reducing cost-sharing for high-value pharmaceuticals and general medical services. The researchers will take advantage of a natural experiment created by the staggered implementation of the two VBID programs in Oregon, the Oregon Public Employees’ Benefit Board (PEBB) and the Oregon Educators Benefit Board (OEBB). They will compare the VBID experience with that of three public employers in Oregon that did not implement the program. Their analysis will assess the causal effect of the VBID programs on medical service use, costs, and patient outcomes. The goal of the project is to inform policymakers, benefit plan designers, and employers about the effectiveness of VBID in reducing costs and improving patient outcomes.

Additional information about Dr. Maclean’s HCFO-funded work is available here. More detail about her research and a list of selected publications can be found here.