Arturo Vargas Bustamante

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Arturo Vargas Bustamante is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He has a broad background in health policy, with specific training and expertise in health care survey research and data analysis, health care cost estimation, economic valuation and program evaluation. His research investigates unexplored or underexplored topics on access to health care, predominantly among Latinos/Hispanics and immigrants in the United States. He also specializes in the comparative analyses of health care delivery systems in Latin American countries. His research has been published in reputable health policy journals such as Health Affairs, Health Services Research, Social Science and Medicine, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, among others. The outcomes of his research have had direct policy applications, particularly since they estimate the share of disparities that can be attributed to socioeconomic and demographic factors and the corresponding part associated to health system variables, such as usual source of care and insurance status.

Professor Vargas Bustamante holds a PhD (2008) in Public Policy, an M.A. (2006) in Economics and an M.P.P. (2004) all from UC-Berkeley. As part of his professional experience, he worked as a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank and for the California Program on Access to Care. Before he worked for the Health Care Financing Administration of the Mexican Ministry of Health.

Selected Courses:

HPM 200 Health Care Organization and Financing

HPM 206 Health Care for Vulnerable Populations

HPM 226 Readings in Health Services Research

Selected Publications:

1. Contributions to U.S. Latino/Hispanic Health Care Research:

Vargas Bustamante A, Fang H, Rizzo JA, Ortega AN. Understanding observed and unobserved health care access and utilization disparities among US Latino adults. Medical Care Research & Review, 2009;66(5):561-77.

Vargas Bustamante A, Fang H, Rizzo JA, Ortega AN. Heterogeneity in health insurance coverage among US Latino adults. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2009;24 Suppl 3:561-6.

Vargas Bustamante A, Chen J, Rodriguez HP, Rizzo JA, Ortega AN.  Use of preventive care services among Latino subgroups. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2010;38(6):610-9.

Vargas Bustamante A, Chen J. Physicians cite hurdles ranging from lack of coverage to poor communication in providing high-quality care to latinos. Health Affairs, 2011;30(10):1921-9.

2. Contributions to U.S. Immigrant Health Care Research:

Vargas Bustamante A, Chen J.  The great recession and health spending among uninsured U.S. citizens and non-citizens: implications for the afffordable care act implementation, Health Services Research, 2014 Dec;49(6):1900-24.

Vargas Bustamante A, Fang H, Garza J, Carter-Pokras O, Wallace SP, Rizzo JA, et al. Variations in healthcare access and utilization among Mexican immigrants: the role of documentation status. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health / Center for Minority Public Health, 2012;14(1):146-55.

Vargas Bustamante A, Chen J, Health expenditure dynamics and years of U.S. residence: analyzing spending disparities among Latinos by citizenship/nativity status. Health Services Research, 2012;47(2):794-818.

Chen J, Vargas-Bustamante A, Ortega AN. Health care expenditures among Asian American subgroups. Medical Care Research and Review, 2013;70(3):310-29.

3. Contributions to Cross-Border Health Care Research:

Vargas Bustamante A, Ojeda G, Castaneda X. Willingness to pay for cross-border health insurance between the United States and Mexico. Health Affairs, 2008;27(1):169-78.

Laugesen MJ, Vargas-Bustamante A. A patient mobility framework that travels: European and United States-Mexican comparisons. Health Policy, 2010;97(2-3):225-31.

Vargas Bustamante A, Laugesen M, Caban M, Rosenau P.  United States-Mexico cross-border health insurance initiatives: Salud Migrante and medicare in Mexico. Pan American Journal of Public Health, 2012;31(1):74-80.

Gonzalez Block MA, Vargas Bustamante A, de la Sierra LA, Martinez Cardoso A. Redressing the limitations of the affordable care act for Mexican immigrants through bi-national health insurance: a willingness to pay study in Los Angeles. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health / Center for Minority Public Health, 2014;16(2):179-88.

4. Contributions to Comparative Health Systems Research:

Vargas Bustamante A.  The tradeoff between centralized and decentralized health services: evidence from rural areas in Mexico. Social Science & Medicine, 2010;71(5):925-34.

Vargas Bustamante A. Comparing federal and state healthcare provider performance in villages targeted by the conditional cash transfer programme of Mexico. Tropical Medicine & International Health: TM & IH, 2011;16(10):1251-9.

Vargas-Bustamante A. Menu labeling perception & health behaviors between immigrant and U.S.-born minority populations: assessment in two Los Angeles public markets, Salud Pública, 2013;55 Suppl 4:S515-22.

Vargas Bustamante A, Mendez CA. Healthcare privatization in Latin America: what explains diverging healthcare privatization policies in Chile, Colombia and Mexico, Journal of Health Care Politics, Policy and the Law, 2014;39(4):841-86.

Links:

Google Scholar Profile

Jack Needleman

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Jack Needleman, PhD, FAAN, is a Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and Associate Director of the UCLA Patient Safety Institute. He teaches courses in health policy analysis and American political institutions and health policy in the master’s programs and research design and research methods to doctoral and MS students, and has previously taught program and policy evaluation. He received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Dr. Needleman’s research focuses on the impact of changing markets and public policy on quality and access to care, and health care provider and insurer responses to market and regulatory incentives. For the past decade, Dr. Needleman’s research has focused on studies of quality and staffing in hospitals and on the evaluation and design of performance improvement activities.  Three of Dr. Needleman’s first authored publications on quality of care and nurse staffing are designated patient safety classics by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Quality measures he developed have been adopted by AHRQ, Medicare, Joint Commission, and National Quality Forum and his expertise developing, testing and refining quality measures has been tapped by these and other organizations. He was lead evaluator for the Robert Wood Johnson initiative Transforming Care at the Bedside and serves on the Steering Council for the NIH-funded Improvement Science Research Network.

Dr. Needleman’s research extends beyond nursing. He has directed projects on a wide range of topics, including studies of for-profit and nonprofit hospitals, the impact of community health centers on hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions, and changes in access to inpatient care for psychiatric conditions and substance abuse. He has had a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award to study the future of public hospitals. He studied Canadian provisional systems for paying and regulating hospitals, physicians and supplemental health insurers, and regulating new technology. Prior to coming to UCLA in 2003, Dr. Needleman was on the faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health and before that was Vice President and Co-Director of the Public Policy Practice at Lewin/ICF, a Washington health policy research and consulting firm. While at Lewin/ICF, he conducted studies and served as a consultant to numerous state and federal task forces examining health care costs and access to care, and evaluated or helped design payment systems for hospitals, physicians and nursing homes.

Dr. Needleman’s research on the impact of nurse staffing and nurses’ working conditions on patient outcomes in hospitals and the business case for increasing nurse staffing received the first AcademyHealth Health Services Research Impact Award. In 2007, he was inducted as an honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.  He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine.

Education: 

PhD, Harvard University

Selected Publications: 

Needleman, Jack, Peter I. Buerhaus, Catherine Vanderboom and Marcelline Harris. “Using Present-on-Admission Coding to Improve Exclusion Rules for Quality Metrics: The Case of Failure-to-Rescue.”  Medical Care. 2013; 51(8):722-30. doi: 10.1097/MLR.0b013e31829808de

Needleman, Jack. “Assessing Low Mortality in Magnet Hospitals.” Medical Care. 2013; 51(5): 379-81.

Wyte-Lake, Tamar, Kim Tran, Candice C. Bowman, Jack Needleman and Aram Dobalian. “A Systematic Review of Strategies to Address the Clinical Nursing Faculty Shortage.” Journal of Nursing Education. 2013; 52(5):245-252.

Needleman, Jack, Peter Buerhaus, V. Shane Pankratz, Cynthia L. Leibson, Susanna R. Stevens and Marcelline Harris.  “Nurse Staffing and Inpatient Hospital Mortality.” New England Journal of Medicine. 2011; 364(11):1037-45 [AHRQ Designated Patient Safety Classic]

Yee, Tracy, Jack Needleman, Marjorie Pearson, and Patricia Parkerton. “Nurse manager perceptions of the impact of process improvements by nurses.” Journal of Nursing Care Quality 2011; 26 (3):226-35.

Needleman, Jack, and Ann F. Minnick. “Response to Commentary: What Conclusions Can We Draw from Recent Analyses of Anesthesia Provider Model and Patient Outcomes?” Health Services Research 2010; 45 (5):1397-1406.

Needleman, Jack, Patricia H. Parkerton, Marjorie L. Pearson, Lynn M. Soban, Valda V. Upenieks and Tracy Yee. “Impacts on the Learning Community Hospitals of Transforming Care at the Bedside.” American Journal of Nursing 2009; 109(11 Suppl):59-65.

Needleman, Jack. “Is What’s Good for the Patient Good for the Hospital? Aligning Incentives and the Business Case for Nursing.” Journal of Politics, Policy and Nursing Care 2008;  9(2):80-7

Needleman, Jack, Ellen T. Kurtzman, and Kenneth W. Kizer. “Performance Measurement of Nursing Care: State of the Science and the Current Consensus.” Medical Care Research and Review 64, no. 2S (2007): 10S-43S.

Needleman, Jack, Peter I. Buerhaus, Maureen Stewart, Katya Zelevinsky, and Soeren Mattke. “Nurse Staffing in Hospitals: Is There a Business Case for Quality?” Health Affairs 25, no. 1 (2006): 204-11. [AHRQ Designated Patient Safety Classic]

Berney, Barbara, and Jack Needleman. “Impact of Nursing Overtime on Nurse Sensitive Patient Outcomes in New York Hospitals, 1995-2000.” Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice 7, no. 2 (2006): 87-100.

Falik, Marilyn, Jack Needleman, Robert Herbert, Barbara Wells, Robert Politzer, and M. Beth Benedict. “Comparative Effectiveness of Health Centers as Regular Source of Care: Application of Sentinel Acsc Events as Performance Measures.” Journal of Ambulatory Care Management 29, no. 1 (2006): 24-35.

Bazzoli, Gloria J., Richard C. Lindrooth, Romana Hasnain-Wynia, and Jack Needleman. “The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and U.S. Hospital Operations.” Inquiry 41, no. 4 (2004): 401-17.

Needleman, Jack, Peter Buerhaus, Soeren Mattke, Maureen Stewart and Katya Zelevinsky, “Measuring Hospital Quality: Can Medicare Data Substitute for All Payer Data?.” Health Services Research 2003; 38(6):1487-1508.

Buerhaus, Peter and Jack Needleman, Soeren Mattke and Maureen Stewart, “Strengthening Hospital Nursing.” Health Affairs 2002; 21(5):123-132.

Needleman, Jack, Peter Buerhaus, Soeren Mattke, Maureen Stewart and Katya Zelevinsky, “Nurse-Staffing Levels and the Quality of Care in Hospitals,” New England Journal of Medicine 2002; 346(22): 1715-1722. Abstracted in The Yearbook of Anesthesiology and Pain Management 2003. [AHRQ Designated Patient Safety Classic]

Needleman, Jack, “The Role of Nonprofits in Health Care,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 2001; 26(5):1043-1060.

Marilyn Falik, Jack Needleman, Barbara L.Wells, and Jodi Korb, “Ambulatory Care Sensitive Hospitalizations and Emergency Visits: Experiences of Medicaid Patients Using Federally Qualified Health Centers,” Medical Care 2001; 39(6):551-561.

Needleman, Jack, JoAnn Lamphere and Deborah Chollet, “Uncompensated Care and Hospital Conversions in Florida,” Health Affairs 1999; 18(4):125-133.

Needleman, Jack, “Nonprofit to For-Profit Conversions by Hospitals, Health Insurers, and Health Plans,” Public Health Reports 1999; 114(2):108-119.

Needleman, Jack, Chollet, Deborah J., and Lamphere, JoAnn, “Conversions of Public and Not-for-Profit Hospitals to For-Profit Status,” Health Affairs, 1997; 16(2):187-195.

Needleman, Jack, “Sources and Policy Implications of Uncertainty in Risk Assessment.” Statistical Science: A Review Journal of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics 1988; 3:328-338.

Bailar, John C., III, Jack Needleman, Barbara Berney and J. Michael McGuiness, editors, Assessing Risks to Health: Methodological Approaches. Westport, CT: Auburn House, 1993.

 

Gerald Kominski

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Gerald Kominski is a Professor of Health Policy and Management and a Senior Fellow at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. His research focuses on evaluating the costs and financing of public insurance programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, Workers’ Compensation. He is also working extensively on evaluating the expected and actual impacts of health care reform and has co-led the development of a microsimulation model (CalSIM) for forecasting eligibility, enrollment, and expenditures under health reform. He currently serves as PI of several multi-year evaluations of Medicaid 1115 waiver demonstration projects in California involving disease management for fee-for-service Medi-Cal beneficiaries and expansion of coverage for low-income uninsured adults otherwise ineligible for Medi-Cal through county-based indigent care programs. From 2003-2009, he served as Vice Chair for the Cost Impact Analysis Team of the California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP), which conducts legislative analyses for the California legislature of proposals to expand mandated insurance benefits. From 2001-2008, he was Associate Dean for Academic Programs at the UCLA School of Public Health.

Dr. Kominski received his Ph.D. in public policy analysis from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School in 1985, and his A.B. from the University of Chicago in 1978. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA in 1989, he served for three and a half years as a staff member of the agency now known as the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). He is co-author of over 120 articles and reports, and is editor of the widely used textbook, Changing the U.S. Health Care System:  Key Issues in Health Services Policy and Management, which will be published in its 4th edition in 2014.

Selected Publications:

Kominski GF (ed.). Changing the U.S. Health Care System: Key Issues in Health Services Policy and Management, 4th Edition, San Francisco: Wiley and Sons, 2014.

Roby DH, Jacobs K, Kertzner AE, Kominski GF. California health policy research program - supporting policy making through evidence and responsive research. Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law 2014; 34(4):887-900.

Davis AC, Watson G, Pourat N, Kominski GF, Roby DH. Disparities in CD4 monitoring among HIV-positive Medicaid beneficiaries: Evidence of differential treatment at the point of care. Open Forum Infectious Diseases 2014;1(2):42.

Pourat N, Davis AC, Chen X, Vrungos S, Kominski GF. In California, primary care continuity was associated with reduced emergency department use and fewer hospitalizations. Health Affairs 2015;34(7):1113-1120.

Jones AL, Cochran SD, Leibowitz A, Wells KB, Kominski GF, Mays VM. Usual primary care provider characteristics of a patient-centered medical home and mental health service use. J Gen Intern Med 2015; 30(12):1828-1836.

Gans D, Hadler M, Chen X, Wu SH, Dimand R, Abramson JM, Diamant AL, Kominski GF. Impact of a pediatric palliative care program on the caregiver experience. Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing 2015;17(6):559-565.

Lucia L, Dietz M, Jacobs K, Chen X, Kominski GF. Which Californians will Lack Health Insurance under the Affordable Care Act?Berkeley, CA: UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, January 2015.

Meng YY, Diamant A, Jones J, Lin W, Chen X, Wu SH, Pourat N, Roby D, Kominski GF. Racial and ethnic disparities in diabetes care and impact of vendor-based disease management programs. Diabetes Care 2016;39(5):743-749.

Gans D, Hadler MW, Chen X, Wu S, Dimand R, Abramson JM, Ferrell B, Diamant AL, Kominski GF. Cost analysis and policy implications of a pediatric palliative care program. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 2016; 52(3):329-335.

Labovitz JM, Kominski GF. Forecasting the value of podiatric medical care in newly insured diabetic patients during implementation of the Affordable Care Act in California. Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association 2016; 106( 3):163-171.

Sorenson A, Nonzee NJ, Kominski GF. Public Funds Account for Over 70 Percent of Health Care Spending in California. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, August 2016.

Mager-Mardeusz H, Kominski GF. More than 400,000 Californians with Developmental Disabilities Remain Outside the State Safety Net. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, November 2016.

Dietz M, Lucia L, Kominski GF, Jacobs K. ACA Repeal in California: Who Stands to Lose? Berkeley, CA: UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, December 2016.

Kominski GF, Nonzee NJ, Sorensen A. The Affordable Care Act’s impacts on access to insurance and health care for low-income populations. Annual Review of Public Health 2017; 38:489–505.

Kenya L. Covington

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Kenya L. Covington conducts empirical research that examines social and economic inequality associated with the structural makeup of metropolitan areas. Her work suggests ways to better utilize social and urban policies that likely mitigate disparities in economic opportunity and well-being overall.

For over a decade she was professor of urban studies and planning at California State University Northridge and concluded her tenure as full professor. In 2015 she was named Distinguished Teacher of the Year.

Professor Covington teaches courses on Housing Policy, Introduction to Public Policy, Research Methods, Forces of Urbanization, Social Inequality and Urban Poverty. She joined the Public Policy faculty at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs in 2017. 

Dr. Covington actively participates in APPAM, Urban Affairs, ACSP and the Population Association of America. Over her career, Dr. Covington’s articles have appeared in the Journal of Urban Studies, Brookings Institution Policy Briefs, Journal of Urban Affairs, the International Journal on Economic Development, the Harvard Journal on Legislation, the National Urban League’s 2003 and 2004 publication titled The State of Black America, and The Review of Black Political Economy, among other publications.

Jody Heymann

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Dr. Heymann established and will continue to lead the first global initiative to examine health and social policy in all 193 UN nations. This initiative provides an in-depth look at how health and social policies affect the ability of individuals, families and communities to meet their health needs across the economic and social spectrum worldwide. In addition to carrying out award-winning global social policy research, Heymann carried out some of the original studies on the risk of HIV transmission via breast milk to infants in Africa, the impact of HIV/AIDS on tuberculosis rates in Africa, and how labor conditions impact the health and welfare of families globally.

She has authored and edited more than 200 publications, including 15 books. These include Changing Children’s Chances(Harvard University Press, 2013), Making Equal Rights Real (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Lessons in Educational Equality (Oxford University Press, 2012), Protecting Childhood in the AIDS Pandemic (Oxford University Press, 2012), Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder (Harvard Business Press, 2010), Raising the Global Floor (Stanford University Press, 2009),Trade and Health (McGill Queens University Press, 2007), Forgotten Families (Oxford University Press, 2006), Healthier Societies (Oxford University Press, 2006), Unfinished Work (New Press, 2005), Global Inequalities at Work (Oxford University Press, 2003), and The Widening Gap (Basic Books, 2000).

Deeply committed to translating research into policies and programs that improve individual and population health, Dr. Heymann has worked with government leaders in North America, Europe, Africa and Latin America as well as a wide range of intergovernmental organizations including the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization, the World Economic Forum, UNICEF and UNESCO. Central to her efforts is bridging the gap between research and policymakers. She has helped develop legislation with the U.S. Congress as well as with UN agencies based on the implications of her team’s research results. Dr. Heymann’s findings have been featured on CNN Headline News; MSNBC; Good Morning America; Fox News; National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” “Fresh Air” and “Marketplace;” in The New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; Business Week; Inc; Portfolio; Forbes India and USA Today, among other internationally and nationally syndicated programs and press.

Darin Christensen

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Darin Christensen is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He received his Ph.D. in political science and M.A. in economics from Stanford University.

Darin studies political economy, focusing on institutions and policies that promote investment and mitigate social conflict in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. He has consulted on projects for The Asia Foundation, USAID, and The World Bank.

Darin is a co-founder of the Project on Resources and Governance (PRG) and an affiliate of several academic centers, including the California Center for Population Research, Center for Effective Global Action, Evidence in Governance and Politics, and UCLA’s African Studies Center.

More information about his research and teaching can be found at darinchristensen.com.

Jim Newton

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Jim Newton is a veteran journalist, author and teacher. In 25 years at the Los Angeles Times, Newton worked as a reporter, editor, bureau chief, columnist and, from 2007 through 2010, editor of the editorial pages.

He is the recipient of numerous national and local awards in journalism and participated in two staff efforts, coverage of the 1992 riots and the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In 2022, he was chosen by the American Political Science Association for the Carey McWilliams Award, which honors a journalist or organization each year for intellectual forthrightness and political independence in memory of a California lawyer who became an influential political leader, author and editor.

Before joining the Los Angeles Times, he was a reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and he began his career as the 1985-86 clerk to New York Times columnist James Reston. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College.

He came to UCLA full-time in early 2015 to teach in Communication Studies and Public Policy and to found Blueprint, a new UCLA magazine (blueprint.ucla.edu) addressing the policy challenges facing California and Los Angeles in particular. He serves as the magazine’s editor-in-chief.

Newton also is a respected author of four important, best-selling and critically acclaimed works of history: Man of Tomorrow: The Relentless Life of Jerry Brown (Little, Brown and Company, 2020); Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made (Riverhead, 2006); Eisenhower: The White House Years (Doubleday, 2011); and Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace (Penguin Press, 2014), a collaboration with former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. He recently signed with Random House to produce a book on Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead and the San Francisco counterculture of the 1960s. It’s tentatively slated for publication in 2025.

Zev Yaroslavsky

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During a career in public life spanning nearly four decades, Zev Yaroslavsky has been at the forefront of Los Angeles County’s biggest issues, including transportation, the environment, health care, and cultural arts.  He has been a pioneering advocate for the region’s homeless population and has played a key role in efforts to reform the county’s law enforcement agencies.

Mr. Yaroslavsky was first elected to office in 1975, stunning the political establishment by winning the Los Angeles City Council’s coveted 5th District seat at the age of 26.  He honed his fiscal skills as chairman of the Council’s Finance Committee and earned a reputation for being unafraid to tackle controversial issues, including the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of excessive force and its improper spying on law-abiding residents.  He authored two landmark ballot initiatives, one which cut in half the size of new commercial developments near residential neighborhoods in the City of L.A., and the other which banned oil drilling along the city’s coastline.

In describing Mr. Yaroslavsky’s City Hall tenure, the Los Angeles Times wrote that he “was more often than not a dominant player in virtually every municipal initiative of note since he joined the City Council.”

In 1994, Mr. Yaroslavsky was elected to the five-member Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, representing the western part of the county and a constituency of two million people.  He served five terms as the Board’s Third District representative.  Because of term limits, he retired from office on December 1, 2014.  Supervisor Yaroslavsky’s award-winning website, which ran from late 2009 until the end of his term, including blog entries and feature stories on County issues, programs and personalities, can be accessed here.

As a member of the Board of Supervisors, Mr. Yaroslavsky quickly emerged as a leader on fiscal, health care, transportation, cultural and environmental matters.  He authored several landmark ballot initiatives:  the 1996 park bond, which resulted in the preservation of a broad swath of rural open space and the development of urban parks throughout the county, and the 2002 trauma tax, approved by more than 73% of county voters—a measure credited with saving two public hospitals from closure and keeping the county’s emergency services intact.

Mr. Yaroslavsky was the driving force behind several major transit projects, including the hugely successful Orange Line busway across the San Fernando Valley, the Exposition Light Rail line from downtown to Santa Monica which will be completed at the end of 2015, and the subway—Purple Line—extension from Western Ave. to West Los Angeles which broke ground in 2014.

After the closure of Martin Luther King, Jr. hospital in south Los Angeles, Mr. Yaroslavsky proposed a partnership between the University of California and Los Angeles County upon which the recently re-opened hospital was modeled.  Mr. Yaroslavsky also launched the building of three innovative school-based health clinics in largely working-class neighborhoods where many residents are living below the poverty line and rarely seek medical attention.  He also led the effort to provide permanent supportive housing for thousands of homeless persons who’ve been identified as most likely to die if they remained on county streets.

During his public service career, Mr. Yaroslavsky was the county’s leader in the cultural arts.  The Los Angeles Times said of him before he retired, “It would be hard to find another major politician anywhere in the entire country with Yaroslavsky’s record for outright arts support and achievement.” He championed efforts to rebuild and modernize the world famous Hollywood Bowl amphitheater and was instrumental in the development of architect Frank Gehry’s iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra.  He has also funded major investments in the County Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History and the San Fernando Valley Performing Arts Center.

Mr. Yaroslavsky is also credited with playing a leading role in the sweeping reforms of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.  He is responsible for the creation of the Citizen’s Commission on Jail Violence in 2011 which recommended dozens of measures to restore constitutional policing and integrity to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and its jails.

Apart from his responsibilities as an elected official, Mr. Yaroslavsky has long been associated with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., that promotes the development of democratic institutions in burgeoning democracies.  He has monitored five elections for NDI:  Romania (1990), Mexico (2000), Ukraine (2004), and Nigeria (2011 & 2015).  He has conducted seminars on local government finance and democratic institution-building in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Bosnia/Herzegovina.

Mr. Yaroslavsky is now the Director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and the Department of History, focusing on the intersection of policy, politics and history of the Los Angeles region.

Mr. Yaroslavsky was born and raised in Los Angeles and earned an M.A. in British Imperial History and a B.A. in Economics and History, both from UCLA.  He is a graduate of Fairfax High School in Los Angeles.

Michael A. Stoll

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Michael A. Stoll is Professor of Public Policy in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He serves as a Fellow at the American Institutes for Research, the Brookings Institution, the Institute for Research on Poverty at University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and served as a past Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.

Dr. Stoll’s published work explores questions of poverty, labor markets, migration, and crime. His past work includes an examination of the labor market difficulties of less-skilled workers, in particular the role that racial residential segregation, job location patterns, job skill demands, employer discrimination, job competition, transportation, job information and criminal records play in limiting employment opportunities.

His recent work examines the labor market consequences of mass incarceration and the benefits and costs of the prison boom. A recently completed book, Why Are so Many Americans in Prison, explores the causes of the American prison boom and what to do about it to insure both low crime and incarceration rates.

Much of his work has been featured in a variety of media outlets including NPR, PBS, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Economist, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, Univision, among other outlets.  He also regularly advises the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Labor, as well as for state and local governments in various capacities.

Prof. Stoll received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley.

RECENT BOOKS

 

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

Why are So Many Americans in Prison? jointly authored with Steven Raphael, New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2013.

Do Prisons Make Us Safer? The Benefits and Costs of the Prison Boom
edited with Steven Raphael, New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2009

Barriers to Reentry? The Labor Market for Released Prisoners in Post-Industrial America edited with David Weiman and Shawn Bushway, New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007 (Selected as a Noteworthy Book in Industrial Relations by Princeton University’s Industrial Relations Section.)