Temperature Extremes Mean More No-Shows at Pediatric Visits
Kids Missed Doctor’s Appointments More Often in Severe Weather
News
Penn SUMR Scholars Arrive at 2026 AcademyHealth Research Meeting
Seattle Event Immerses Them in the National Health Services Research Community
Print:
SEATTLE – Thirty-nine scholars from the University of Pennsylvania’s Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research (SUMR) program have arrived here to take part in the 2026 AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting (ARM). SUMR is a joint program of Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) and the Wharton School’s Health Care Management Department.
The students — 36 from the SUMR program and three from the affiliated LDI Dental Summer Health Services Research Fellowship — are from 27 universities and colleges across the country. They are mostly undergraduates interested in exploring careers in health services research (HSR). Each is assigned a Penn faculty mentor and immersed in real-world research projects throughout a three-month summer curriculum.
“The SUMR scholars are all incredibly excited to be here,” said Joanne Levy, MBA, MPC, LDI Director of Student Initiatives, Founding Director of the SUMR Program, and Associate Director of the Wharton School’s PhD Program in Health Management and Economics. “In terms of immersing students in the health services research community, it doesn’t get better than bringing them to the annual AcademyHealth meeting. The experience puts them elbow-to-elbow with the leading national experts in their fields of interest.”
AcademyHealth is the country’s largest professional organization of researchers focused on how the U.S. health care system is organized, financed, managed, and delivered.
The four-day event in Seattle includes hundreds of presentations, panels, workshops, networking pods, and research posters focused on areas such as health care disparities, health care workforce diversity, research methods, and many other related topics. Booths in the large expo hall are staffed by representatives from major universities with health care research programs, along with federal regulatory agencies and other health care organizations that recruit and support young HSR researchers.
More LDI News
Kids Are Getting Sicker. The NIH Must Adapt, LDI Fellow Writes
His Team Urges NIH Reforms to Spur Pediatric Research and Reverse America’s Worsening Child Health Crisis
How the No Surprises Act Solved One Problem and Created Another
LDI Tradeoffs Seminar Examines How Arbitration Rules Are Inflating Payments and Overwhelming the System
Heat and Cold Deaths Are Rising Faster for Less Educated Americans
Chart of the Day: New Study Links Lower Education Levels to Rising Climate-Related Deaths
Cost Plus Drugs Beats Health Insurance for High-Cost Generics
Chart of the Day: Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs Can Save Employer-Covered Patients Hundreds on Some Generics
Penn LDI’s Eric Roberts Wins AcademyHealth Publication of the Year Award
Cited for the “Most Outstanding” Health Services Research of 2025