Sarah Axeen

Sarah Axeen is an Assistant Professor of Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. Her work focuses on opioid use and abuse, mental and behavioral health policy impacts, and healthcare disparities. She evaluates solutions to the opioid epidemic, examines state-level policies affecting mental health, and analyzes geographic and demographic variations in healthcare utilization. Prior to her current role, she held postdoctoral positions at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Her research frequently intersects with emergency department practices and public health system challenges.

Key research areas include policy evaluation for addiction treatment, EMTALA compliance analysis, and healthcare access for vulnerable populations such as undocumented immigrants and those with serious mental illnesses. She has contributed to understanding how commercial healthcare prices influence Medicare spending and how maternal mental health affects birth outcomes. Her studies often utilize large-scale datasets like Medicare and Medicaid claims, electronic health records, and national surveys to assess real-world healthcare dynamics.

Her articles highlight trends in opioid-related emergency department visits, disparities in cervical and breast cancer screening, and the impact of legal mandates on hospital accountability. She has also explored how the pandemic altered healthcare utilization patterns, particularly in safety-net systems. No scientific awards are explicitly mentioned in the provided texts, but her extensive publication record reflects impactful contributions to health policy research. She collaborates across institutions and has no listed advisees, focusing instead on collaborative grant-funded projects examining healthcare disparities and system reforms.

Affiliations include the Keck School’s Emergency Medicine department and the USC Schaeffer Center. Her work emphasizes translating policy research into actionable solutions for improving healthcare access and reducing disparities in high-risk populations.