Research Bio
Becky Staiger is a health policy researcher whose research focuses on how systems, policies, and incentives influence healthcare provider behavior and the delivery of care, particularly for marginalized populations enrolled in Medicaid. Her work spans topics including Medicaid, the reproductive healthcare workforce, and opioid prescribing and utilization. Staiger’s current projects examine how providers respond to economic and policy incentives, with a particular focus on how physician group affiliations shape the care patients receive. She also studies barriers to provider participation in caring for low-resourced, high-need patient populations.
She is a Professor of Public Health at UC Berkeley. Her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Commonwealth Foundation, and has been published in journals including American Economic Journal: Economic Policy and Health Affairs. At Berkeley, she teaches courses on causal inference and health policy, mentoring students in applied economics research.
Research Expertise and Interest
health policy and management, access to healthcare, health economics, medicaid, provider behavior, healthcare delivery
In the News
New Reproductive Health Restrictions Have Not Driven OB-GYNs out of States With Abortion Bans
Featured in the Media
“Given the media reports, we expected to find some indication of a systemic migration,” said study leader Rebecca Staiger, an assistant professor at the School of Public Health. “We searched in many different ways. At the end of the day... we determined that, at least at this point - two years after Dobbs - we weren’t seeing any evidence.”