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Joel E. Cohen, Ph.D., directs a staff of health economists, statisticians, social scientists, clinicians, and support staff conducting intramural and supporting extramural research on issues related to health care access, costs, and financing. He is also responsible for the design and fielding of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which is a nationally representative survey of health care use, expenditures, and insurance coverage that is widely used by policymakers and researchers in analyses of the U.S. health care system.

Dr. Cohen has conducted research projects on a variety of health care issues, focusing particularly on analyses of financing and reimbursement methods and their effects on access to care, quality, and costs.  His publications include studies of enrollment in Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the impact of Medicaid reimbursement levels on utilization patterns for physician services and nursing home quality, methods of predicting which individuals are likely to be high cost, and the impact of obesity on health care expenditures.

Dr. Cohen has been at the Agency and its predecessor organizations since 1989, and prior to that was a Research Associate at the Urban Institute.  He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in policy research from the University of Chicago.