David Jones

David Jones’ research focuses on evaluating the impact of public health programs and policies, examining the composition of health care systems in the U.S. and the quality and cost of care delivered by systems, and assessing health policies and programs more broadly.

Jones currently leads the evaluation of several public health programs and policies, including studies of (1) the impact of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes on prices, purchases, and consumption among families and children, (2) fiscal and economic impacts of legalizing recreational marijuana use in Massachusetts on state and local budgets, (3) head impacts among youth football players, including a randomized control trial of an alternative tackling technique and robot tackling dummies and comparison of impacts in tackle and flag football, and (4) the Well-Integrated Screening and Evaluation for Women Across the Nation program, an initiative that provides cardiovascular screening and lifestyle programs to uninsured and underinsured women. Jones also leads Mathematica’s work with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Comparative Hospital System Performance (CHSP) Initiative to develop the Compendium of U.S. Health Systems and leverage the Compendium to study the formation of health systems and how they deliver care. Past work for AHRQ includes an analysis of the methods used to calculate the AHRQ quality indicators, with a focus on how the methods can be improved to better facilitate comparisons across types of hospitals.

Before joining Mathematica in 2008, Jones held positions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Abt Associates, Inc.; and Duke University, where his research focused on issues related to preventive care for children. Jones holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He publishes in and serves as a reviewer for peer-reviewed journals.