people

Elizabeth J. Gifford

Research Scientist

Beth Gifford is a research scientist at the Center. Her primary research interests involve evaluating programs and policies that are designed to improve health outcomes for vulnerable children. These populations include children who are poor, in the juvenile justice system, in foster care, in special education or who have emotional and or behavioral problems. She is particularly interested in applying the best research methodology to inform decision makers as they balance goals of cost, quality and access in providing health care.

Recent Publications

1. Gifford, E.J., Wells, R.S, Miller, S., Troop, T.O., Bai, Y., Babinski, L. (2010). Pairing nurses and social workers in schools: North Carolina’s school-based child and family support teams. Journal of School Health.


2. Gifford, E.J. and Foster, E.M. (2008). Provider-level effects on length of stay for youth with mental health and substance abuse disorders. Medical Care, 46, 240-246.


3. Foster, E.M., E.J. Gifford (2005). The Transition to Adulthood for Youth Leaving Public Systems: Challenges to policies and research. In R.A. Settersten, F. Furstenberg, R. Rumbaut (Eds.) (Ed.).  On the Frontier of Adulthood: Theory, Research, and Public Policy. University of Chicago Press.


4. E.J. Gifford, R. Weech-Maldonado, P. Short (2005). Encouraging Preventive Services for Low-Income Children: Implications for Expanding Medicaid Coverage to Parents. Health Care Financing Review, 24(4), 81-94.


5. Bhandari, S. and E.J. Gifford (2003). Children with Health Insurance in the United States: 2002, 60-224.

1. Teacher expectations and self-efficacy for working with bullies and victims, Posted presented by Leslie Babinski at the American Psychological Association Convention in Toronto, Canada., 23 September 2009
2. School-based Child & Family Support Teams: evaluating systems of care in action, Presented at the Building on Family Strengths Conference: Putting Youth and Families First, Portland, Oregon, June, 2009
3. Comparison of Three Regression Approaches to Model Resource Use in Multinational Clinical Trials, 27th Annual Meeting of the Society for Medical Decision Making, San Francisco, CA, 2005
4. Race and Space: Community-level variation in the racial disparity of use of therapeutic psychostimulant medications by youth, Investing in Health: 5th World Congress, International Health Economics Association, Barcelona, Spain, July, 2005
5. Understanding Provider Influences on Residential Length of Stay Among Youth with Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Co-occurring Disorders: A Bayesian cross-classified approach, 24th Biennial Conference, Society for Multivariate Analysis in Behavioral Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, July, 2005