Erica Eliason, PhD, MPH

Leadership & Core Faculty

Erica L. Eliason, PhD, MPH (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor at the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy and the Department of Urban-Global Public Health in the Rutgers School of Public Health. She is experienced in health services research and focuses much of her work on the effects of health policies on maternal, child, and reproductive health and health equity, with a particular emphasis on Medicaid and CHIP policies. Dr. Eliason serves as Principal Investigator on a K99/R00 award, the Effects of the Medicaid Continuous Coverage Requirement During the Public Health Emergency on Postpartum Coverage and Maternal and Infant Care after Childbirth, which examines how continuous enrollment for Medicaid recipients during the pandemic affected maternal and child health care and coverage inequities, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). 

She is also a Co-PI for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project, Providing Evidence of the Impact of the Continuous Medicaid Coverage Requirement During COVID-19 on Postpartum Medicaid Enrollment and Healthcare Use, which uses multi-state Medicaid claims data to explore variation in postpartum coverage and care changes during the COVID-19 Medicaid continuous coverage provisions. Dr. Eliason has been recognized for her work by AcademyHealth, Women’s Health Issues, and GADE Social Work, including the Charles E. Gibbs Leadership Prize for Best Manuscript in 2020. Her work also involves public service, including advocating on behalf of the Gowanus Canal as a member of the Gowanus Dredgers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Gowanus Canal Superfund Community Advisory Group (CAG). Prior to joining the Center in 2024, Dr. Eliason was a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University School of Public Health. She earned her MPH and PhD from Columbia University.