Michael Davern is Senior Vice President, Director of Public Health Research. In this role he oversees the department's public health survey and analytical research for clients that include the federal government and foundations. His expertise includes survey research, public health data, linking surveys with administrative data, Census Bureau data and the use of these data for policy research simulation and evaluation.
Davern's vision is to improve population health by providing policy makers with better information to make decisions. To that end, he analyzes data sources to clearly demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses in assessing the impacts of health policy. His leadership skills are evident in the many complex projects he manages in his multiple roles at NORC. For example, he is currently the NORC Project Director for the Comparative Effectiveness Research Public Use Data Pilot Project, which has already resulted in the release of public use files created from the eight Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) claims datasets (e.g., inpatient, carrier, and Part D) and is evaluating other avenues for creating public use data files and investigating alternative ways to disseminate the Medicare data for CMS. He was a senior advisor on a project to inform MACPAC about the existing federal surveys and examine ways to improve their capacity to provide policy-relevant information and monitor changes in the Medicaid program in all 50 states and the District of Columbia over time. He also led a multi-organization study bringing together several federal agencies, including CMS and AHRQ, to link survey and administrative data to enhance understanding of the strengths and limitations of both types of data for health policy research purposes.
Prior to joining NORC, Davern served as research director of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) at the University of Minnesota, where he designed, developed, and managed various health policy research projects for (SHADAC) staff. This included designing sampling schemes, developing survey instruments, constructing survey weights, imputing missing data, and writing survey documentation for health insurance and health access surveys. He also evaluated and used various national data sources for state-centered research. He was also an investigator working with the Minnesota Population Center's dissemination of U.S. Census (from 1850 to the present), International Census (more than 150 censuses from more than 50 countries), and National Health Interview Survey data through the IPUMS data extraction system. He was also the founding co-director of the U.S. Census Bureau Research Data Center (RDC) at the University of Minnesota. The RDC officially opened for business in 2010 and is a critical part of the Census Bureau's RDC system focused on health data and Census Data improvement activities.
Davern has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles on evaluating health data quality, survey methodology, social networks, health insurance, income measurement, and health disparities. He has also helped secure more than 40 grants and contracts for public health and social science research.
Davern has received numerous honors, including the John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators, the Fesler-Lampert Chair in Aging Studies, the Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Graduate School Award in the Social Sciences, and the John J. Kane Memorial Award for the Outstanding Graduate Student in Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. Davern has served many roles in the social science community including as member of the organizing committee for the 10th Conference on Health Survey Research Methods, technical expert panelist for a Census Bureau Review of Person Identification Validation System (PVS), technical expert panelist for an Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation Review of the Urban Institute's Health Policy and Medicaid TRIM models, technical expert panelist for CMS development of a research extract from the Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX), member of the organizing committee for the Committee on National Statistics Panel on Sources of Data on SCHIP, technical expert panelist for Social Security Administration's (SSA) Evaluation of linked Current Population Survey data and Survey of Income and Program Participation data to SSA administrative data for policy analysis.