Sandra Tang

With support from a grant awarded by Arnold Ventures, YPL has partnered with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) to conduct an impact evaluation of MIHP. Using a randomized encouragement design, outreach specialist will provide enhanced recruitment to a subset of individuals who are eligible for MIHP, with a goal of increasing participation in the program. YPL will leverage that increase in participation to evaluate the program’s impact on key maternal and infant health outcomes.

With funding provided through Governor Whitmer’s Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies initiative, YPL evaluated the effectiveness of a pilot program to allow MIHP provider agencies to bill for additional services and care coordination for families with high levels of need for basic services. Providers received reimbursement for an additional home visit, longer home visits, care coordination services, and a discharge assessment. Key outcomes included social determinants of health, such as food security, financial stability, education, employment, treatment for mental health symptoms, treatment for subs...

With initial funding from UnitedHealthcare, YPL has partnered with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Maternal Infant Health Program (MIHP) to conduct a landscape analysis to explore the statewide need for expanding home visiting services to infants and toddlers beyond 18 months. It will also identify what additional services, resources, and tools would be required to support such an expansion.

High-quality early learning programs boost children’s kindergarten readiness and effects can last into adulthood. However, defining and measuring quality is difficult and expensive. Classroom video observations are a classic method used by education researchers to understand how the instructional environment relates to student learning. Although videos provide rich context on what occurs in the classroom, they require a significant amount of human labor and time to accurately code, which can lead to delays in acquiring information. Moreover, early education researchers have found that construc...

YPL is evaluating two interventions targeted at improving chronic absenteeism in National Heritage Academies charter schools. The first intervention involves sending text messages to parents, emphasizing the importance of attendance and providing parents with up-to-date information on their child's past attendance. There are 92 NHA schools participating in the messaging intervention nationwide. The second intervention involves school staff providing individualized case management support to a family to alleviate barriers that prevent children from attending school regularly. There are 11 NHA s...