Project Spotlight
The Evaluation of Equity-focused Policies in California (EQuiP-CA) Project (2022-pres) based at UCSF and in partnership with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), is a mixed methods study leveraging a unique set of natural experiments to evaluate the state’s COVID-19 equity policies. Our project team is also tasked by the state and the CDPH Office of Health Equity to develop a legislative report that includes lessons from our work on the pandemic and how these lessons can be incorporated in the growing variety of equity-focused public health related activities across the state. A subset of our team’s ongoing research promisingly suggests that health equity focused policies are on track but specific efforts can help better identify unmet social needs in future equity-focused policy design and implementation.. This project is led by Dr. Priya Shete at UCSF.
CalPROTECT (2020-2022) was an initiative of Amend at UCSF that brings together a multidisciplinary team of 30+ academics and health professionals at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of California, Berkeley with expertise in clinical medicine, public health, epidemiology, environmental health, economics, and political science. Through documenting and assessing the capacity in California state prisons to respond to COVID-19 based in science, our team provides recommendations that prioritize the dignity, health, and wellbeing of currently incarcerated people, staff, and surrounding communities. I was co-Director of CalPROTECT alongside Dr. David Sears. This work was led by Drs. Brie Williams and Stefano Bertozzi, and the team included Sandra McCoy, Rachel Sklar, Amy Lerman, Lee Worden, and many more. The Quality of Tuberculosis Care (Qutub) Project in urban India (2013-2021) brought together a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional research team to inform the pilot and scale-up of health programs and their transition to the Government in two cities. The programs aimed to shorten the time to diagnosis and improve delivery of proper treatment for tuberculosis in the private sector. I was the Project Director for the Qutub Project, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and conducted with Madhukar Pai (PI at McGill University), Jishnu Das (PI at Georgetown University), Benjamin Daniels (Georgetown University), Veena Das (Johns Hopkins University), Ranen Das, the Institute for Socio-Economic Research on Development and Democracy (ISERDD) in India, and others. |
Publications
- Gertler P and Kwan A. The essential role of altruism in medical decision making. NBER Working Paper No. w32151, 2024. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4731060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4731060.
- Hoover C, Estus E, Kwan A, Raymond K, Sreedharan T, Leon T, Jain S, Shete P. Evaluation of an equity-focused vaccine allocation strategy on vaccination rates and COVID-19 outcomes in California, 2021. Accepted at Health Affairs, 2024.
- Leach BC, Ahalt C, Williams B, Kwan AT. Stress and anxiety among correctional health care professionals in a US state prison system during COVID-19. Journal of Correctional Health Care. 2024 Jan 4.
- Sklar R, Noth E, Kwan A, Sears D, Bertozzi S. Ventilation conditions during COVID-19 outbreaks in six California state carceral institutions. Plos one. 2023 Nov 7;18(11):e0293533.
- Boone CE, Gertler PJ, Barasa GM, Gruber J, Kwan A. Can a private sector engagement intervention that prioritizes pro-poor strategies improve healthcare access and quality? A randomized field experiment in Kenya. Health Policy and Planning. 2023 Nov 1;38(9):1006-16.
- Svadzian A, Daniels B, Sulis G, Das J, Daftary A, Kwan A, Das V, Das R, Pai M. Use of standardised patients to assess tuberculosis case management by private pharmacies in Patna, India: A repeat cross-sectional study. PLOS Global Public Health. 2023 May 26;3(5):e0001898.
- Svadzian A, Daniels B, Sulis G, Das J, Daftary A, Kwan A, Das A, Das R, Pai M. Do private providers initiate anti-tuberculosis therapy on the basis of chest radiographs? A standardized patient study in urban India. The Lancet Regional Health-Southeast Asia. 2023 Feb 2.
- Tan ST, Kwan AT, Rodríguez-Barraquer I, Singer BJ, Park HJ, Lewnard JA, Sears D, Lo NC. Infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections and reinfections during the Omicron wave. Nature Medicine. 2023:1-8.
- Daniels B, Shah D, Kwan A, Das RK, Das V, Puri V, Tipre P, Waghmare U, Gomare M, Keskar P, Das J, Pai M. Tuberculosis diagnosis and management in public and private health care sectors in Mumbai, India: A cross-sectional standardized patients study. BMJ Global Health. 2022;7:e009657.
- Kwan A, Garcia-Grossman I, Sears D, Bertozzi SM, Williams B. The impact of COVID-19 on the health of incarcerated older adults in California state prisons. Health Affairs. 2022 Aug; 41(8):1191-1201.
- Blumberg S, Lu P, Kwan AT, Hoover CM, Lloyd-Smith JO, Sears D, Bertozzi SM, Worden L. Mitigating outbreaks in congregate settings by decreasing the size of the susceptible population. PLOS Computational Biology. 2022 Jul; 18(7):e1010308.
- Duarte C, Cameron DB, Kwan AT, Bertozzi SM, Williams BA, McCoy SI. COVID-19 outbreak in a state prison: A case study on the implementation of key public health recommendations for containment and prevention. BMC Public Health. 2022; 22(1):1-12.
- Kwan A, Sklar R, Cameron DB, Schell R, Bertozzi SM, McCoy SI, Williams B, Sears DA. Respiratory pandemic preparedness learnings from the June 2020 COVID-19 Outbreak at San Quentin California State Prison. International Journal of Prisoner Health. 2022 Jun 10.
- Kwan A. Implementing quality of care measures: Lessons from a standardized patient study in seven provinces of China. AJPH. 2002 Jun; 112(6)808-20.
- Das V, Daniels B, Kwan A, Saria V, Das R, Pai M, Das J. Simulated patients and their reality: An inquiry into theory and method. Soc Sci Med. 2022 May 1; 300:114571.
- Kwan A, Boone CE, Sulis G, Gertler PJ. Do private providers give patients what they demand, even if it is inappropriate? A randomized study utilizing unannounced standardized patients in Kenya. BMJ Open. 2022;12:e058746.
- Rosapep LA, Faye S, Johns B, Olusola-Faleye B, Baruwa EM, Sorum MK, Nwagagbo F, Adamu AA, Kwan A, Obanubi C, Atobatele AO. Tuberculosis care quality in urban Nigeria: A cross-sectional study of adherence to screening and treatment initiation guidelines in multi-cadre networks of private health service providers. PLOS Global Public Health. 2022 Jan 6;2(1):e0000150.
- Salomon A, Boffa J, Moyo S, Chikovore J, Sulis G, Daniels B, Kwan A, Mkhombo T, Wu S, Pai M, Daftary A. Prescribing practices for presumptive tuberculosis among private general practitioners in South Africa: A cross-sectional, standardized patient study. BMJ Global Health. 2022;7(1):e007456.
- Barnert ES, Kwan AT, Williams B. Ten urgent priorities based on lessons learned from over a half million known COVID-19 cases in U.S. prisons. AJPH. 2021; 0:e1_e7, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306221.
- Boffa J, Moyo S, Chikovore J, Salomon A, Daniels B, Kwan AT, Pai M, Daftary A. Quality of care for tuberculosis and HIV in South Africa’s private health sector: A cross-sectional, standardised patient study. BMJ Global Health, 2021;6:e005250. doi:10.1136/ bmjgh-2021-005250.
- Sulis G, Daniels D, Kwan A, Gandra S, Daftary A, Das J, Pai M. Antibiotic overuse in the primary healthcare setting: A secondary data analysis of standardized patient studies from India, China, and Kenya. BMJ Global Health. 2020 Sep;5:e003393.
- Kwan A, Daniels B, Bergkvist S, Das V, Pai M, Das J. Use of standardised patients for healthcare quality research in low-and middle-income countries. BMJ Global Health. 2019 Sep 1;4(5):e001669.
Companion piece (online supplement), 250+ page toolkit:
Kwan A, Bergkvist S, Daniels B with Das J, Das V, Pai M. (2018). Using standardized patients to measure health care quality: A manual and toolkit for projects in low- and middle-income countries. Also available at: https://github.com/qutubproject/using-standardized-patients. - King JJ, Das J, Kwan A, Daniels B, Powell-Jackson T, Makungu C, Goodman C. How to do (or not to do)… using the standardized patient method to measure clinical quality of care in LMIC health facilities. Health policy and Planning. 2019 Aug 19.
- Daniels B, Kwan A, Pai M, Das J. Lessons on the quality of tuberculosis diagnosis from standardized patients in China, India, Kenya, and South Africa. Journal of Clinical Tuberculosis and Other Mycobacterial Diseases. 2019 Jun 7:100109.
- Daniels B, Kwan A, Satyanarayana S, Subbaraman R, Das RK, Das V, Das J, Pai M. Use of standardised patients to assess gender differences in quality of tuberculosis care in urban India: a two-city, cross-sectional study . The Lancet Global Health. 2019 Mar 27.
- Kwan A, Daniels B, Saria V, Satyanarayana S, Subbaraman R, McDowell A, Bergkvist S, Das RK, Das V, Das J, Pai M. Variations in the quality of tuberculosis care in urban India: A cross-sectional, standardized patient study in two cities . PLOS Medicine. 2018, 15(11):e1002653.
- Bautista-Arredondo S, Sosa-Rubí S, Opuni M, Contreras-Loya D, La Hera-Fuentes G, Kwan A, et al. Influence of supply-side factors on voluntary medical male circumcision costs in Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia. PLOS One, 2018,13(9):e0203121.
- Bautista-Arredondo S, La Hera-Fuentes G, Contreras-Loya D, Kwan A, Van Buren SJ, Amanze OO, Atobatele A, Adeyemi A, Abatta E, Ogungbemi KM, Sosa-Rubí S. Efficiency of HIV services in Nigeria: Determinants of unit cost variation of HIV counseling and testing and prevention of mother-to-child transmission interventions . PLOS One, 2018, 13(9):e0201706.
- Satyanarayana S, Kwan A, Daniels B, Subbaraman R, McDowell A, Bergkvist S, Das RK, Das V, Das J, Pai M. Use of standardised patients to assess antibiotic dispensing for tuberculosis by pharmacies in urban India: a cross-sectional study. Lancet Infectious Diseases. 2016 Nov 1;16(11):1261-8.
- Bautista-Arredondo S, Sosa-Rubí SG, Opuni M, Contreras-Loya D, Kwan A, Chaumont C, Chompolola A, Condo J, Galárraga O, Martinson N, Masiye F. Costs along the HTC and PMTCT service cascades: findings from Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia. AIDS. 2016 Jul 29.
- Das J, Kwan A, Daniels B, Satyanarayana S, Subbaraman R, Bergkvist S, Das RK, Das V, Pai M. Use of standardised patients to assess quality of tuberculosis care: a pilot, cross-sectional study. Lancet Infectious Diseases. 2015 Nov 30;15(11):1305-13.
- de Walque D, Gertler PJ, Bautista-Arredondo S, Kwan A, Vermeersch C, Bizimana JdD, Binagwaho A, Condo J. Using provider performance incentives to increase HIV testing and counselling services in Rwanda. Journal of Health Economics. 2015, 40:1-9.
- Bautista-Arredondo S, Sosa-Rubí S, Opuni M, Kwan A, Chaumont C, et al. Assessing cost and technical efficiency of HIV prevention interventions in sub-Saharan Africa: the ORPHEA study design and methods. BMC Health Services Research. 2014, 14(1):599.
- Crabtree-Ramírez B, Caro-Vega Y, Sosa-Rubí, Kwan A, Sierra-Madero J, Ortega-Pérez R, et al. Acceptability and willingness to receive short message service (SMS) regarding HIV health care information in a HIV adult population in Mexico City. J Int AIDS Soc. 2014, 17(2Suppl 1):19180,P1.
- Mechael P, Kwan A, Struble S. Using mobile phones on the job. Student BMJ; 20:e777.
- Journal of Biomolecular Technique’s Outstanding Article of the Year:
Gross V, Carlson G, Kwan AT, Smejkal G, Freeman E, Ivanov AR, and Lazarev A. Tissue fractionation by hydrostatic pressure cycling: the unified sample preparation technique for systems biology studies. J. Biomolec Tech. 2008, 19(3): 189-199.
Works in Review / Working Papers
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