Lauren Olsho is a senior health economist and evaluator with expertise in random assignment, quasi-experimental evaluation methods, economic modeling methodology, and advanced statistical and econometric analysis.
Olsho’s primary research interests are in health, nutrition and health behaviors in vulnerable populations – including the elderly, the poor, program participants, minorities, arrestees and at-risk youth.
Olsho recently served as principal investigator on a cluster random assignment evaluation of the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality On-Time Falls Prevention Initiative, a clinical decision support intervention to reduce falls in long-term care settings.
For the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), she has led analysis for several rigorous evaluations of nutrition interventions, including a regression discontinuity evaluation of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program and a random assignment evaluation of the Healthy Incentives Pilots.
Prior to joining Abt, Olsho was a National Institute of Mental Health trainee in health and mental health economics for five years, acquiring a broad base of applied knowledge and skills in health and mental health economics and policy.
Olsho also has taught an undergraduate seminar on economics of food policy at Harvard University and serves as a statistical consultant at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
Expertise
- Health economics
- Program evaluation
- Random assignment
- Quasi-experimental evaluation
- Health policy
- Public health
- Chronic disease
- Nutrition
- Long-term care
- Risky behaviors
Education
- Ph.D., Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- B.S., Economics and Biology, Wesleyan University