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Full-Text Articles in Public Policy

The Pink Tax: A Comparative Case Study Between Tennessee And Washington State, Megha Chitturi May 2023

The Pink Tax: A Comparative Case Study Between Tennessee And Washington State, Megha Chitturi

Baker Scholar Projects

The imposition of an additional luxury tax on menstrual health products, otherwise referred to as the “Pink Tax” or the “Tampon Tax”, is present in some states while absent in others. The decision to repeal such a tax is one that has proven to be critical, as it removes the connotation that such products are of “luxury” and make them more accessible to menstruators throughout the state. As of 2023, twenty-three states have eliminated the tax. The state of Washington falls under that parameter while Tennessee does not. The purpose of this undergraduate honors thesis is to explore the potential …


Does Electoral Proximity Influence Commitment To International Human Rights Law?, Nolan Ragland May 2023

Does Electoral Proximity Influence Commitment To International Human Rights Law?, Nolan Ragland

Baker Scholar Projects

The core international human rights treaties from the United Nations have been signed and ratified by varying groups of states, and much of previous research has been dominated by a desire to explain ratification of international human rights law (IHRL) through the democratic lock-in effect and states’ economic and political ties to one another. In this paper, I seek to understand when states are ratifying IHRL, testing whether the presence of elections influences commitment to three of the nine core international human rights treaties: the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of …


The Development Of Health System Resiliency: How Kenya's Experience With Malaria Impacted Its Reaction To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Zoe A. Ward May 2023

The Development Of Health System Resiliency: How Kenya's Experience With Malaria Impacted Its Reaction To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Zoe A. Ward

Baker Scholar Projects

Public health scholars have recently focused on health system resiliency to explain how previous experiences dealing with public health crises impact the healthcare sector, public behavior, and policy response to novel crises. However, it is unclear how resiliency develops. This study contributes by testing whether a health system’s experience with a health emergency and significant interventions impacts the response to a novel crisis. This research asks, “How has Kenya’s experience with malaria impacted its response to COVID-19?” Using the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS), I develop a malaria adherence score to measure county-level compliance …


Ballad Health: Understanding Appalachia’S Regional Healthcare Monopoly, Meredith A. Bailey May 2023

Ballad Health: Understanding Appalachia’S Regional Healthcare Monopoly, Meredith A. Bailey

Baker Scholar Projects

The Ballad Health merger of 2018, which combined the now 21 hospitals in the region under one organization, has impacted the healthcare landscape in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. Historically, Appalachia has had to persevere through primary physician shortages, a lack of specialty care, geographic obstacles to accessing healthcare, challenges related to substance abuse, and much more. Since the merger of Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System, little research has been done to assess the perceived impact the aggregation of providers has had on the population it serves. This study utilizes an online survey to better understand the …