Amy Helburn

PhD, MPH

Assistant Teaching Professor

Health Sciences


Research Interests

Health policy, quality measures (risk-adjusted for socio-economic determinants of health), paid leave policy, access to care/health insurance

Overview

Professor Helburn has twenty-five years of experience designing and implementing public health programs, as well as coordinating strategic planning and systems change. She worked with diverse, community-based organizations in Boston neighborhoods, having worked at HRiA for nearly a decade, facilitating community health initiatives, enhancing coalitions’ capacity and coordinating assessment and evaluation efforts. These experiences reinforced the importance of effecting structural change in public health through advocacy and policy, and so, she went back to school to earn a PhD in Public Policy at the McCormack School of Policy Studies. Prof Helburn has also worked as a public health policy researcher at RTI International, conducting federal contract research, for clients such as ACF, ASPE, and CMS. She has undertaken self-directed, applied research, as well as research in partnership with senior faculty, federal agencies, and state and municipal governments. Currently, she is a co-investigator on a RWJF research project, conducting focus groups to examine perspectives state and county-level human service agencies with respect to their management, alignment and engagement with CBO providers, public health, and health services. Her ongoing research interests focus on the socio-economic determinants of inequities in health status and outcomes, and how Health in All Policies can help to better achieve health equity.

Selected Publications

Yaros, A., Ramirez, D., Tueller, S., McKay, T., Lindquist C., Helburn, A. Feinberg, R. and Bir, A. (2018) Child Well-Being when fathers return from Prison Journal of Offender Rehabilitation Vol. 52, No. 2 144-161 April 2018.

Seibert, J., Feinberg, R., Ayub, A., Helburn, A. and Gibbs, D. (2018) State Practices in Treatment/Therapeutic Foster Care ASPE Research Brief Washington DC: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services April 2018

Helburn A. & Schutt, R. Community Inclusion of Individuals with Disabilities: The Perspective of Massachusetts Policy Makers Executive Report University of Massachusetts, Boston July 2013

Weller, C. and Helburn, A. (2010) States to the Rescue: Policy Options for State Government to Promote Private Sector Retirement Savings Journal of Pension Benefits Vol. 18, No. 1 New York: Aspen Publishers Autumn 2010

Weller, C. and Helburn, A., “Public Policy Options to Build Wealth for America’s Middle Class” in Shared Responsibility, Shared Risk: Governments, Markets and Social Policy in the Twenty-First Century ed. Hacker, J. and O’Leary, A. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 123-141.

Courses
HSCI 1000 College: An Introduction
HSCI 4992 Directed Study
PHTH 2515 Health Policy & Administration
PHTH 4511 Healthcare Management
PHTH 4515 Critical Issues in Public Health Policy
PHTH 4540 Health Education & Program Planning
PHTH 5212 Public Health Policy & Administration