Laura Faden

Graduate Student, Department of Health Policy

Laura Faden is a second-year PhD candidate in the Health Policy Program at Harvard (Evaluative Sciences and Statistics track).  She is interested in the ways the current incentives in, and organization of, health care systems affect access to health services, quality of care and health outcomes.  She plans to conduct quantitative research to inform policies that will re-align these incentives to optimize health care in the U.S. and internationally.  Specifically, she is interested in evaluating how health insurance reform can improve access to pharmaceuticals and mental health services.  She is currently working on a project looking at the effects of insurance on the cost-effective use of pharmaceuticals in developing countries.  Laura also has interests in teaching, and will be a teaching fellow for a quantitative methods course at the Kennedy School this fall.  Prior to Harvard, she was a research analyst at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development and interned at the Massachusetts Health Connector Authority.  Laura received an MPH in Health Services Policy and Management from Tufts University School of Medicine and a BA from Boston University.  She is currently a pre-doctoral Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality trainee.