The Roger and Flo Lipitz Center to Advance Policy in Aging and Disability

The Lipitz Center and HEADS Center shared NIH-funded research and training highlights with a bipartisan group of congressional staffers at the Johns Hopkins Discovery Lab: From Bench to Breakthrough. Dr. Jennifer Wolff summarized JHU’s NIH-funded population based ADRD research programs, including: 🔹 T32 program inHealth Services and Outcomes Research for Aging Populations 🔹 Hopkins Economics of Alzheimer’s Disease & Services Center 🔹 National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS): https://lnkd.in/eMEFMzAX 🔹 National Study of Caregiving (NSOC): https://www.nhats.org/nsoc 🔹 State Alzheimer’s Research Support (StARS) Center: https://lnkd.in/e7kSxKWD Dr. Julia Burgdorf described how NIH support fueled her research career in home health — from doctoral work using NHATS/NSOC to a T32 postdoc to NIH research grants and an NIH career development award. Dr. Katherine Miller shared state variability of Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS) and shared her new cross-state dataset (see here: https://lnkd.in/eTcyPnNs) that can be used by researchers, CMS and state policymakers. Attendees commented on how much they appreciated the depth of the talks and the chance to see how NIH funding at JHU is advancing the fight against Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Congratulations Andrew Jopson and Aleksandra (Aleks) Wec on receiving their PhD in Health Policy from the Johns Hopkins BSPH Department of Health Policy and Management! Jopson and Wec, both advised by faculty members Chanee Fabius, PhD & Jennifer Wolff, are former trainees from the Center's T32 Training Program in Health Service and Outcomes Research for Aging Populations. Both successfully defended their dissertations in August 2025, and now they've made it official at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Convocation. Join the Center is wishing them the best in their future endeavors. 💙

On May 8th, HPM professor Jennifer Wolff was presented the 2025 Dean’s Award for Distinction in Faculty Mentoring at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Faculty Promotions Dinner. The award honors faculty who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to fostering the scientific, academic, and career development of their fellow faculty members. In addition to Wolff, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health-Department of Epidemiology professor Kala Visvanathan, MD, MHS was named a 2025 awardee. Join us in congratulating Jennifer Wolff and click here to learn more about the Dean’s Award for Distinction in Faculty Mentoring: https://lnkd.in/dngyzPxk

Last Friday, trainees and training mentors from the T32 Training Program in Health Service and Outcomes Research for Aging Populations gathered for their annual end of year celebration! We wish graduating postdocs Zhang Zhang and John Mulcahy the best in their next steps and future endeavors. Top row, left to right: John Mulcahy, Jennifer Wolff, Julia Burgdorf, Danielle Peereboom, MPH, Cynthia Boyd Bottom row, left to right: Katherine Ornstein, Natalie Davoodi, MPH, Yutong Zhang, Laura Brotzman, PhD, MPH, Nancy Schoenborn, Alexa Bragg Learn more about the T32 training program: https://lnkd.in/e5erDd_B

Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging (MiCDA)'s Changing Demography of Family Caregiving Network will be holding a webinar on June 5th, 2026 from 12-2pm EST. Featuring Lipitz Center member Chanee Fabius, PhD, the webinar will focus on caregiving and relationship dynamics, preferences and roles, and dementia-related care. Register here: https://lnkd.in/eQEHyFAG

"Our goal is to build and continuously refine a reproducible data infrastructure that lowers barriers to rigorous work in this space, particularly as funding for Medicaid Home- And Community-based Services programs faces increasing pressure." https://lnkd.in/eTcyPnNs More than 70 million people live with long-term disabilities in the United States, and they often require complex care. In the United States, much of this care is paid for by Medicaid, a public insurance program for low-income individuals that is jointly funded by states and the federal government. Beginning in the 1980’s, states have used waivers to fund and deliver home- and community-based services (HCBS), thereby enabling subsets of Medicaid recipients to receive long-term care beyond nursing homes. However, the lack of standardized data has made it difficult to evaluate these programs across states and over time. The Medicaid Home- And Community-Based Services (HCBS) Waiver Atlas provides the first public dataset to systematically compile and structure information on Medicaid HCBS waivers across the United States. Led by Katherine Miller, the project enables users to:  🔹 Compare waiver programs across states 🔹 Analyze services, eligibility, and delivery models Members of the research team include Thomas Kidu, Vignesh R Babu, Valecia Hanna, M.S., Chloe Kim, Ashitha P Gowda, and Johanna Thunell. Check out their dataset: https://lnkd.in/eTcyPnNs

Congratulations to Natalie Davoodi, MPH for earning first place in the student category for the 19th annual Research on Aging Showcase Poster Competition! Davoodi is a trainee within the T32 Training Program in Health Service and Outcomes Research for Aging Populations. Through the study she presented at the Poster Competition, she evaluated the association between Medicare Advantage dental benefit adoption and plan enrollment among plans that adopted dental benefits from 2009 to 2024. Based on the results, the study suggests that dental benefits may influence beneficiaries' plan choice. Learn more about the Research on Aging Showcase: https://lnkd.in/dSQfbtpf