Juan (Grace) Bao
Assistant Research Scientist
- juan-bao@uiowa.edu
- N334 CPHB
- CV
Juan (Grace) Bao is an assistant research scientist with the Research and Evaluation Core. Her recent research focuses on health policy and program evaluation. Currently she is serving as a data core member and working together with other health policy researchers on evaluating Iowa’s Medicaid Expansion (i.e., Iowa Health and Wellness Plan) efforts. She is primarily involved in evaluating the policy components of waiver of the retroactive eligibility, $8 copay for non-emergency use of ED, and cost and sustainability. Her roles include New Enrollee Survey development, sampling, management, data analytics, and reporting; IHA and HCUP state emergency department (SEDD) datasets and ED classification etc. She also works on health disparities in Hispanic New Destinations (e.g., methods on identifying new destinations, chilling effects on health care utilization).
Additionally, she is collaborating with researchers from other research institutions on Iowa Latinx Family Health project and COVID-19 project, and Children, Youth, and Families at Risk (CYFAR) project. Past studies include examining associations among fear of deportation, stress, hope, and substance use among Hispanic early adolescents, understanding the experiences during COVID-19 among rural Midwestern Latinx immigrant mothers, and exploring Latina maternal mental health trajectories before and during COVID-19 etc.
Juan is trained as a human and family science researcher with an emphasis on health disparities, risk and resilience among rural, low-income and/or immigrant families from Iowa State University.