UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal: Submission #1287

Research Mentor Information
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Primary Research Mentor Name: Katie Yewell
Research Mentor Preferred Pronouns: she/her/hers
When potential research assistants are reaching out via email, what is your preferred honorific?: Dr. or Prof. 
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated): kyewell@fsu.edu
Position Title: Faculty
FSU College (if applicable): Social Sciences and Public Policy
FSU Department or Non-FSU Organization Affiliation: Economics
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Additional Research Mentor(s)
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Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from above): {Empty}
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Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Honorific?: {Empty}
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Overall Project Details
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Title of the Project: Exploring Health Impacts of Free School Meals
Project Keywords: economics, health, health economics, public policy, food policy, food insecurity, medical coding
Are you currently looking for research assistants?: Yes
Number of Research Assistants Needed : 3
Relevant Research Assistant Major(s):
My preference would be for economics majors, but public policy students would also be a good fit. Students interested in a future in medical and health fields may also be interested.

Project Location:: On FSU Main Campus
If the project location is off campus, does the research assistant(s) need to provide their own transportation?: {Empty}
Please select the choice that most accurately describes your expectations for the research assistant(s):: Partially Remote
Approximately how many hours a week would the research assistant(s) need to work?: 3-10 hours per week.  Depending on the stage of the project and the task at hand it would be natural to expect more or less hours would be needed in this range. 
Roughly what time frame do you expect research assistant(s) to work?: Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Overall Research Project Description:
The goal of this project is to explore how expanding free school meals programs may improve severe and costly health outcomes such as visits to the emergency department.  The specific policy we will focus on is called the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which enables schools to provide free meals to all students in a school, regardless of their individual family income.  School meals are considered an integral part of the social safety net, comprising the second largest nutrition assistance program in the US.  Prior research has shown that the introduction of the CEP program enhanced the existing National School Lunch Programs by removing barriers to participation, thereby decreasing food insecurity for both children and their families.  Since CEP had a meaningful impact on household resources, it likely impacted other health inputs such as stress, adverse behaviors, non-adherence to medications, and delay of medical care.  As these health inputs change, we expect that healthcare utilization, costs, and health outcomes might change as well.  

In this project, we will explore the impact of the CEP program on health by using emergency department discharge data from several states.  Research assistants will begin by learning about this program through a review of publicly available policy briefs and reports, which may also include collecting publicly available lists of schools that are participating in the program.  Next, they will explore the existing academic literature in economics, public health, and public policy, as well as the medical literature to determine the relevant medical conditions that may be associated with a change in food security or nutrition.  Following that, we will compile a database of relevant medical diagnosis or procedure codes (e.g., ICD-9, ICD-10, and CPT).  Finally, as interested, they may have the opportunity for hands-on work coding and preparing the emergency department data to identify instances of these medical codes for further analysis. 

Research Tasks:
Background research on policy details; collecting publicly available information from state websites; academic literature review; composing a list of relevant medical conditions and their associated codes (ICD, CPT, etc.); keeping track of references for these medical codes; potential for data cleaning and analysis as interested.  

Skills that research assistant(s) may need::
Required: attention to detail, proactive, strong communication skills, responsiveness to emails, time management skills, good spreadsheet organization. 
Recommended: an interest in public policy, economics, or food policy. 
Optional: an interest in learning to clean data and code using Stata. 


Mentoring Philosophy:
I value the opportunity to work with students who are driven and seek to grow in knowledge and experience.  While I am somewhat new to formal mentoring, I have benefited greatly from mentors throughout my academic journey and seek to emulate their qualities.  My mentoring philosophy, like my teaching philosophy, is based on mutual respect and leading by example.  I want to empower students to have a say in setting their work timeline and accomplishing their tasks independently, but will always be available for guidance and feedback and will provide structure through regular progress check ins.  Throughout the year, clear and open communication will be important, and both sides can expect to adapt to feedback and any challenges that may arise.  While I have set goals for this project, I am also open to collaborating with students to determine how this research experience can be most beneficial for their academic and professional journey.  

Please provide a link to your publications, a video clip, or a website for your research project (if applicable):: https://kgyewell.com/
Please add any additional information here (if applicable)::
If you have any questions about this project, please do not hesitate to email me. I'm looking forward to meeting some of you for this research project!


Are you interested in participating in the UROP Research Mentor Roundtable?: No
Roundtable times and Zoom links:
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UROP Program Elements
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Mentor Handbook, FAQs, and Communication: Yes
UROP Performance Evaluation: Yes
Materials Grant: Yes
UROP Poster Presentation: Yes

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Year: 2025
update url: https://cre.fsu.edu/urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal?token=MwjD_AZIQ9hcZHW1xvgBgpBsIM9YbXcR_J15MHh9u_M