Marxe School Professors and Researcher Win 2020 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize
Article on health care and poverty index wins national recognition for timeliness of subject and rigorous methodologyApril 16, 2020
Baruch College Professors Sanders D. Korenman, PhD, and Dahlia Remler, PhD, along with research scientist Rosemary Hyson, all from Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs and the CUNY Institute for Demographic Research, are recipients of the 2020 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize for their research paper on health care and poverty index.
Baruch College Professors Sanders D. Korenman, PhD, and Dahlia Remler, PhD, along with research scientist Rosemary Hyson, all from Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs and the CUNY Institute for Demographic Research, are recipients of the 2020 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize for their research paper on health care and poverty index.
Each year, the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration awards the Breul Memorial Prize to an educator who publishes the best article in Social Service Review (SSR)—a journal of the University of Chicago Press—in the preceding year.
The Marxe School trio wrote an article in SSR titled, “Medicaid Expansions and Poverty: Comparing Supplemental and Health-Inclusive Poverty Measures.” The authors’ analysis highlights the importance of Medicaid expansions to the most vulnerable segments of the population at a moment when this health care option is in danger of cutbacks.
“Some states have turned down Federal money available to expand Medicaid, and we show that, counting health insurance benefits, poverty is worse in those states than we would expect,” Remler said. “Attempts to erode Medicaid benefits, such as through tough work requirements, strengthened interest in the paper.”
Remler continued, “Now that we have a further, massive coronavirus care crisis, the way we leave so many exposed to inadequate care or to financial crises resulting from care, this paper and our measure are all the more salient.”
“Timeliness of its Subject and the Rigor and Originality of its Methods”
According to Social Science Review, Korenman, Remler and Hyson’s article received the 2020 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize because of the “timeliness of its subject and the rigor and originality of its methods.” SSR added that “with Medicaid coverage under threat from both federal and state policy makers, poverty measures that accurately reflect the financial burdens of low-income families are of critical importance.”
Video: Keeping People Out of Poverty: Do Health Insurance Benefits Make a Difference?
Professor Remler discusses her research, conducted with Professor Korenman, to develop the first U.S. poverty measure to include a need for health insurance and to count health insurance benefits as a resource to meet that need.
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