Kathleen T. Call, PhD
Investigator

Dr. Call joined SHADAC in 2015 as an Investigator. She is also a Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She demonstrates her commitment to community-engaged scholarship through her leadership in the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and the Interdisciplinary Research Leaders (IRL) program, and by co-chairing the UMN, School of Public Health's Health Equity Work Group.  

Dr. Call leads a social contact survey that supplies data to the COVID-19 disease model for Minnesota. Dr. Call also leads the long-standing partnership between SHADAC and the Minnesota Department of Health to field the Minnesota Health Access Survey. She works on a number of community-based participatory research projects focusing on barriers to health care.

Previously, Dr. Call created a survey of health insurance coverage for use by states called the Coordinated State Coverage Survey (CSCS), and has developed a body of research on the complexities of measuring health insurance coverage. This research includes understanding variation in estimates of coverage between the different national surveys, as well as reasons why state-specific surveys produce different estimates of coverage than the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) and American Community Survey (ACS). Her research also explores discrepancies between survey and administrative data counts of insurance coverage—an issue commonly referred to as the “Medicaid undercount.”  Dr. Call has also led primary data collection projects with public program enrollees (focus groups, community forums, and surveys) that assess barriers to services and experiences with health care, using a community-based participatory research process. 

Dr. Call holds a Ph.D. and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota.

Kathleen Call's journal articles on PubMed

Kathleen Call in the Media

Minnesota Medical Association: Physicians Gather to Discuss Public Health Insurance Option in MN
Insurancenews.net February 14, 2020

New health care study looks at rates of uninsured
Southwest Journal December 16, 2019

Smart work by the University of Minnesota to find the uninsured
Star Tribune November 14, 2019

Project identifies Minnesota's uninsured to help them obtain coverage
University of Minnesota SPH News Albert Lea Tribune November 5, 2019

BlueCross MN Foundation working with University of Minnesota to reach state's uninsured population
BlueCross BlueShield  October 31, 2018

UMN works to identify areas lacking health insurance
Minnesota Daily October 22, 2018

Helping Uninsured Minnesotans Obtain Health Coverage
University of Minnesota School of Public Health October 8, 2018

Minnesota: Study Aims to Help MN's Uninsured Obtain Health Coverage
ASPPH October 12, 2018