Health policy researcher seeks better care for everyone
Q&A with University of Michigan researcher Micah Aaron on healthcare equity, systems reform and social change
By Bob Cunningham
For Micah Aaron, BS ’13, MPH ’15, growing up in Detroit and later moving to nearby Farmington Hills taught her an early lesson about inequality and helped shape her career studying healthcare systems.
As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, Aaron worked in a motor control lab helping disabled populations. While she loved the research, she realized clinical medicine wasn’t her calling. Instead, she found her passion in studying how healthcare systems can work better for everyone. After earning her Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, she spent two years at Trinity Health learning how large hospital systems operate before pursuing her PhD at Harvard University.
Today, Aaron is an assistant professor of Health Management and Policy at Michigan Public Health, driven by a simple but powerful goal: ensuring patients get the best possible care for the money spent. She studies hospital and physician practice performance patterns and mergers, asking whether consolidation leads to better, more coordinated care. Her federally funded research appears in top medical journals because it helps policymakers make better healthcare decisions.
Aaron’s work reflects both her Detroit roots and her family’s labor union background, which taught her that meaningful change happens through multiple approaches—from political engagement to scientific research. Now, she’s applying that same principle to healthcare reform, using data and analysis to advocate for a system that works better for everyone.
Through conversations with trusted Michigan Public Health faculty, I was able to conceptualize how I could apply a career of academic exploration to improve health care services and resultant outcomes for patients within the US.”
How did your undergraduate research experience shape your path toward public health?
As an undergraduate student, I participated in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) here at the University of Michigan. For four years, I served as a research assistant in the Motor Control Lab within the School of Kinesiology. Through this experience, I developed a fundamental understanding of and passion for the scientific method, specifically applying study design and statistical methodologies to answer important research questions.
Over the course of my four-year tenure in the Motor Control Lab, I co-authored a study with a post-doc student, assisted with data collection for multiple studies and completed an Honors thesis. I was truly proud of the work I did in the lab and the impact the work had on the care provided to a diverse set of disabled populations. One thing, however, had become strikingly clear—I was not interested in pursuing a career in clinical medicine. So, as a senior in college without a clear future career path, I set out on the path to determine how I could impact the realm of health and healthcare. Through conversations with trusted Michigan Public Health faculty, I was able to conceptualize how I could apply a career of academic exploration to improve health care services and resultant outcomes for patients within the US.
Why is health management and policy the right fit for your research goals?
In my work, I seek to identify the most effective ways to organize, manage, finance and deliver high quality care to create a healthcare system that meets the needs of all patients. Health management policy, particularly the Department of Health Management and Policy here at Michigan Public Health, supports my mission as it uniquely combines just the right diversity in expertise, practice and professionals to stay at the forefront of developing and utilizing novel methods to study and pursue solutions that act on multiple leverage points across the healthcare system and broader policy environment.
What did you do before coming to Michigan, and how did that experience influence your current work?
I worked at Trinity Health, which, at the time, was not only one of the largest health systems in the country but was also a leader in the adoption of value-based reimbursement. In my role, I was responsible for creating business intelligence reports that outlined the health system’s performance on several quality metrics included in the value-based reimbursement contracts for the Medicare and Medicaid patients attributed to Trinity Health providers. The data collected was then utilized and analyzed to predict the level of reward payment Trinity Health could expect to receive at the end of each contract year. This work experience was formative in that it offered me a glimpse into how actors and/or providers within the US care delivery system strategically responded to reimbursement models that featured quality incentives.
What drew you to join the faculty at Michigan Public Health, and what’s it like coming back as faculty after being a student here?
Michigan Public Health is a world-renowned pillar of interdisciplinary collaboration that informs health policy. The Department of Health Management and Policy uniquely features core faculty across multiple important disciplines, including, but not limited to economics, management, national and international policy, political science, engineering and medicine—demonstrating its commitment to fostering diversity of thought to inform better healthcare policy. Given the collaborative nature of my work, which draws on the expertise of multiple disciplines and professionals including economists, statistical methodologists and clinicians, I was confident that the University of Michigan was aptly suited to develop a recognized, high-quality research agenda with an undeniable impact on policy.
The best thing about being an alumna faculty member is having the previous knowledge that the University of Michigan’s academic environment provided me as a young researcher. The University of Michigan’s academic environment is unmatched, featuring an expansive network of brilliant yet uncharacteristically accessible and collaborative scholars. This impression left on me as an undergraduate and graduate student by the institution made it clear that I simply could not pass up the opportunity to be a part of such a thriving community and provide future researchers and students with the same unmatched academic environment featuring work that is near and dear to my heart.
Public health is where robust intellectual pursuit meets the convictions of morality. It is the culmination of everything good about humanity, including our intrinsic motivation to know the most and be the best at our endeavors and our default to care for the least of us.”
What is your main area of research and drew you to work in that area?
My research, which is dually motivated by current health reform efforts and by my formative professional experience at a large, vertically integrated health system, seeks to clarify the relationships between costs, quality and integration within the US healthcare system.
This work is of particular interest to me because it combines my public health passions with a tangential interest I possess in policy development, particularly the practice of influencing the legislative process through active political engagement. My dad has operated the state’s largest labor union in downtown Detroit composed exclusively of road construction and building trades workers for the last 30-plus years and was recently joined by my sister. Together, they advocate for sustainable and livable wages and adequate fringe benefit packages for a diverse population across the state of Michigan. Through my involvement in labor union activities including political candidate vetting/forums/fundraisers, picket lines, and political party conventions, I came to understand that one can contribute to change on a broader scale using multiple avenues: by engaging in the political process (e.g. through voting and propping up like-minded political candidates) and through more grassroot efforts (e.g. peaceful protests and picket lines). In my public health work, I continue with this principle of active engagement to influence policy through my evaluation work of health policy and research efforts which both aim to generate new knowledge to inform health care legislation.
What’s something about public health you wish everyone knew?
Public health is where robust intellectual pursuit meets the convictions of morality. It is the culmination of everything good about humanity, including our intrinsic motivation to know the most and be the best at our endeavors and our default to care for the least of us. Because public health is rooted in humanity both in terms of who it impacts and how it is strategically carried out, it requires a movement of people—a concerted, multilevel and systematic effort, put forth by the people for the people.