Henry J. Carretta, MPH Research Associate Department of Health Administration School of Allied Health Professions Medical College of Virginia Campus Virginia Commonwealth University PO BOX 980203 1008 East Clay Street Richmond, VA 23298 (Work) (804) 828-0172 (Fax) (804) 828-1894 Email Address: hjcarret@hsc.vcu.edu

Current Projects

Primary Care Service Area (PCSA) Project

The purpose of this project is to define and develop small, standardized geographic units for the entire Nation that delineate the actual delivery of primary care clinical services. The need for a system that defines and describes the geographic boundaries of primary care is widely recognized among health care policy makers and analysts. To date, the United States has no such standardized method. Further, there is no primary care service area definitional system that is linked to a national database of pertinent health care resources, population descriptors, health care need measures, or utilization statistics that depicts exactly where, how and how much in the way of primary care is delivered to the American people. The present application proposes to produce just such a system.

Once such a system is developed, validated, and made widely accessible to interested users, it should enhance the ability of health workforce policy makers and analysts to answer a range of important questions, such as which geographic locales are demonstrably underserved and to what extent, what characterized the population of underserved geographic locales and how do such geographic locales correspond to other definitions of underservice. Public and private efforts to promote improved access to primary care should benefit by having a proven method that defines the geographic areas of actual use.

The project accomplishes these goals by using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the Internet to develop a comprehensive national database of primary care service areas that is easy to revise and update. The national database will be accessible to a broad array of potential users with diverse objectives. The system will incorporate a variety of relational databases, which will permit policy and research analyses that span the gamut from the simple and straightforward to the most sophisticated and statistically advanced.

The study is being conducted in collaboration with the Center for the Evaluative Sciences at Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH The principal investigators are David Goodman, MD MS (Dartmouth) and Stephen Mick, Ph.D. (MCV/VCU). 
Publications

Morrow AL, Shults J, Carretta HJ. & Farrell, J. Technical Report: Virginia Child Health and Immunization Survey. Center for Pediatric Research No. 99-01 Norfolk, Virginia, January, 1999

Morrow, AL, Crews, RC, Carretta, HJ, et al. The Effect of Patient Definition on Immunization Assessment Outcomes in Predominately Medicaid and non-Medical Practices. (forthcoming) 

Abstracts Presented

Butterfoss F, Carretta HJ. The Uninsured Children's Program: Primary Care for Uninsured Children. American Public Health Association Annual Meeting San Diego, CA, November 1995.

Morrow AL, Lakkis H, Rosenthal J, Atta H, Carretta HJ, Crews RC. Residential Mobility as a Risk Factor for Underimmunizationl. American Public Health Association Annual Meeting San Diego, CA, November 1995.

Morrow AL, Rosenthal J, Carretta HJ, Bowers, JC. Assessment of Missed Opportunities for Immunization from a Cohort of Randomly Selected Children in Norfolk, Virginia. American Public Health Association Annual Meeting New York, N.Y, November 1996.

Butterfoss F, Carretta HJ. The Uninsured Children's Program: Primary Care for Uninsured Children. The American Pediatric Society/The Society for Pediatric Research Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., May 1996.

Moneymaker CS, Morrow AL, Hannon PM, Carretta HJ, Rosenthal, J. Missed Opportunities to Immunize in Public, Private and Military Primary Care Settings in Norfolk, Virginia. The American Pediatric Society/The Society for Pediatric Research Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., May 1997.

Carretta HJ, Morrow AL, Shults J. Does Eastern Virginia Lag Behind Other Regions in Immunization of Two-Year-Old Children? Research Day: Eastern Virginia Medical School Norfolk, Virginia, October 1998.

Carretta HJ, Morrow AL, Shults J. Virginia Child Health and Immunization Survey. Virginia Public Health Association Annual Meeting Richmond, Virginia, October 1998.

Sheppard VB, Morrow AL, Shults J, Carretta HJ, Farrell JB Ethnic disparities in immunization status: Results of a population-based assessment. American Public Health Association Annual Meeting Chicago, Illinois, November 1999.

Morrow AL, Carretta, HJ, Farrell, JB. A state perspective on population-based immunization data. 1999 Maternal, Infant and Child Health Conference Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, GA, December 1999.