News Release

Lecture to profile Fulbright-funded research effort

April 23, 2009

A prestigious Fulbright-funded research project is the latest effort by Cynthia Mara to improve long-term care for aging and ill Americans.

The Penn State Harrisburg associate professor of health care administration and policy will share the results of her most recent research on the topic at noon April 28 in room C-300 of the Olmsted Building. The presentation is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested by e-mailing shf4@psu.edu.

Mara was awarded a Fulbright Research Chair in Health, Science, and the Environment at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, for the fall 2008 semester “to study the long-term care system in Canada and compare it to the U.S., particularly in the ways in which the systems are integrated with medical care,” she says.

Her presentation will include differences and similarities in the Canadian and U.S. long-term care systems, specifically Ontario and Pennsylvania. “In the United States, long-term care forms a fragmented system, so much so that some call it a non-system,” Mara points out. She feels a primary reason for the fragmentation is the way in which care is financed. In her study, she looked at the Canadian single-payer system to see if it provides continuity of help for people who need both medical and long-term care so there is no disconnect.

She hopes her research in Canada will help ease the fragmentation within the American and Pennsylvania delivery system.