Kathryn Kietzman, PhD, MSW, whose research has focused on health policies affecting older adults and other physically, socially, and financially vulnerable populations, has been named an associate center director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR).

Kietzman joined the center in 2010 working under the mentorship of the late Steve Wallace, a renowned scholar on aging in communities of color, as well as immigrant health and health policy. Since 2021, Kietzman has served as the director of the UCLA CHPR’s Health Equity Program.

In this role, Kietzman has worked on the Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) study, the California Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index (Elder Index), the Research on Immigrant Health and State Policy (RIGHTS) study, and the Health Equity Challenge.

“Kathryn Kietzman has long been a leader, and her research exemplifies what we do at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research,” said Ninez A. Ponce, PhD, MPP, director of the UCLA CHPR and Professor and Fred W. & Pamela K. Wasserman Endowed Chair in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. “In particular, as director of the Health Equity Program, Kathryn drives our critically important research into how well the health care system is meeting the needs of all Californians. It’s my honor to formalize this role for her.”

Kietzman, who is also an associate researcher in the community health sciences department at the Fielding School, earned her doctorate in social welfare from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from UC Berkeley. She is an expert in quantitative research methods applied to health policy.

“I am deeply honored to be appointed as an associate center director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research,” said Kietzman, who is a senior research scientist at the UCLA CHPR. “Every day I am grateful to be part of such a thoughtful and inspiring group of individuals who are working together to produce research that advances health equity and with the overarching goal of ensuring that all members of society have access to the resources needed to optimize their health and well-being.”

In her most recent research, she has focused on policies affecting the health and well-being of older adults and people with disabilities who rely on public programs and other informal supports to maintain their independence.

The California Elder Index, for which Kietzman is the principal investigator, provides an evidence-based indicator of the basic costs faced by older adults (ages 65 and over). The Elder Index has been used to produce groundbreaking analysis of and research into older adults’ economic challenges. The Elder Index has shown that thousands of the state’s older adults are struggling with severe economic insecurity, having “too much” income to qualify for public assistance yet not enough income to make ends meet on their own.

A follow-on survey of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the Long-Term Services and Supports study examines the services and supports needs of Californians who experience difficulties with certain activities of daily life, like dressing and bathing, or  walking and doing errands.

As principal investigator of the LTSS study, Kietzman also oversees and mentors a team of more than a dozen graduate and undergraduate students.

“One of the greatest joys of my job is having the opportunity to work directly with an extraordinarily talented and diverse cadre of students who represent our future leaders in health equity research, policy, and practice,” said Kietzman, who does additional work helping influence the next generation of public health scholars and practitioners as the leader of the center’s Health Equity Challenge.

The UCLA Health Equity Challenge is a competition that provides UCLA graduate students the opportunity to turn their ideas into action by inviting them to develop solutions to address health equity disparites in Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties.

Since 2024, Kietzman has served as an academic advisor for the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Long-Term Care Standards Initiative. She also contributed to the WHO's landmark paper on the importance of taking a life course approach to promoting health and developing age-friendly environments that support access to care.

She has authored or co-authored more than 75 publications, including policy briefs, reports, and peer-reviewed journal articles that have appeared in The Gerontologist, Innovation in Aging, Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, Social Science & Medicine, Health Affairs, and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, among others. She is also on the editorial board of the Journal of Aging and Social Policy

In 2018, Kietzman was named a Gerontological Society of America Fellow in the social research, policy, and practice section, and in 2013 she participated in the National Institute on Aging Butler-Williams Scholars Program.

Kietzman’s work has been supported by grants from the California Department of Aging, California Health Care Foundation, Molina Healthcare of California, California Department of Health Care Services, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities.