[ HAWAII AT WORK ]
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Researcher
plots isle healthJerry Russo and a team
are trying to help
with Hawaii’s uninsuredWhen I'm not educating graduate students on the finer points of health economics at the University of Hawaii, I'm immersed in spreadsheets, charts and data -- turning the noise of numbers into a chorus of characteristics, which will set the stage for solutions for health coverage expansion.
I am not particularly altruistic. In fact, I think of myself as a selfish person except with regard to my family and friends. Economics, however, as a way of viewing the world and as it is applied to public policy, is often concerned with achieving the greatest human good with a given amount of resources (this is called "allocative-efficiency"). This is what attracted me to economics when I was an 18-year old university freshman in 1973, and it's often misunderstood by the general public, which believes economists are mainly concerned with business and financial applications. These are important, but we are equally concerned with environmental policy, health policy, illicit drug policy, international trade and development issues and the entire array of human activities including birth, death and marriage.
Many of these areas are represented at the economics department and the University of Hawaii at Manoa and at major universities nationwide. My own research focuses on the health sector and economic phenomena that drive much of what we see in the health system today. It is a rich area for application and health economics is a growing field worldwide.
As one of just a handful of health economists in Hawaii, the work I do is as much about art as science. Health economics is the study of how resources are allocated to and within the health care market. It combines the study of health as it relates to economics, and the study of economics as it relates to health.
I am collaborating with a number of university scientists to perform groundbreaking research on health insurance reform. We're doing this in partnership with the Hawaii Uninsured Project, a broad coalition of community organizations committed to developing and implementing solutions that will expand access to health care coverage.
The State Department of Health has charged me -- along with a team of researchers -- on a mission to take large pools of data from a number of national and local surveys and generate a socio-demographic profile of Hawaii's medically uninsured. While some individuals are chronically uninsured, many also experience temporary periods of uninsurance. Our work is as challenging as painting a portrait of a moving target.
Our portrait will be unveiled at an Oct. 29 conference when policymakers and community leaders congregate to find solutions that will successfully expand health coverage in the islands.
Despite the challenges, there's a real rush that comes from being on the razor's edge of policy reform and contributing to the process. Policymakers both locally and nationally are awaiting our results, and because of this, down the road we may find Hawaii leading the nation in health care coverage solutions.
Hawaii At Work features tells what people do for a living in their own words. Send submissions to: business@starbulletin.com
