Population Health and Health Policy

For several years, the Center for Tobacco Independence (CTI) has contracted to have phone surveys conducted with a sample of people who call the Center's Help Line. Data from these surveys provide a great deal of information such as the rate of success in quitting tobacco and the methods that are most successful. Beginning in 2009, the Muskie School's Survey Research Center (SRC) became CTI's survey contractor, conducting 730 telephone interviews with a random sample of people who called the Help Line. Following up on the success of that study, SRC will conduct the phone interviews in 2012.

Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System is one of Maine’s standard health behavior surveillance systems, data from which informs policy development, program planning, and other public health interventions for chronic disease prevention. This project will assist the Maine BRFSS coordinator and the Maine CDC to achieve BRFSS objectives. Muskie School staff will update the BRFSS interactive web query as well as maintain multiple-year standardized datasets, add the most recent year of data, and update documentation. Muskie staff will also perform other analyses as necessary, including multivariate and trend analyses to help the Maine CDC better understand prevalence, risk factors and disease management for health behaviors and conditions (such as diabetes, asthma, and cardiovascular disease) that impose a heavy burden on the residents of Maine and its health care system.

Established in 1992, the mission of the Maine Rural Health Research Center is to inform health care policy making and the delivery of rural health services through high quality, policy-relevant research, policy analysis and technical assistance on rural health issues of regional and national significance. The Center's core funding is provided by the federal Office of Rural Health Policy.