These three articles use empirical data to examine important questions regarding public health policy. The first article, “Detecting Selection Effects in Community Implementations of Family-Based Substance Abuse Prevention Programs” discusses the implications of self-selection in to universal prevention programs and implements an innovative statistical procedure to identify such selection in Washington State for the Strengthening Families Program for Parents and Youth.

The second article, “Unintended Consequences: Medicare’s Impact on the Diagnosis of Non-Enrollees” models the incentive for fraudulent diagnosis when provider reimbursement is based on diagnosis for a portion of the population. Importantly, I find evidence that providers which treat a large portion of Medicare patients are more likely to over diagnose (upcode) both Medicare and non-Medicare patients.

The third article examines the role of peer perceptions in young people’s desire to smoke. Using data from the Washington State Healthy Youth Survey, I show that the youth’s expectation of social rewards is a significant predictor of smoking behavior, and interacts with tobacco control policies.