Kao-Ping Chua, MD, PhD

Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics

Associate Professor, Department of Health Management and Policy

Director, Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center

NCRC Building 16, G026W
2800 Plymouth Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2800

Office

734-615-6189

Fax

734-232-1400

chuak@med.umich.edu

Administrative Support

Katherine Luppino
734-615-9818
kluppino@med.umich.edu

@kaopingchua

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Biography

Dr. Kao-Ping Chua is a primary care pediatrician and health services researcher who serves as the Director of the Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center at the University of Michigan Medical School. After completing the Boston Combined Residency in Pediatrics, he obtained a Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard University, with a focus on the empirical methods used in policy evaluation.

Dr. Chua’s research focuses on slowing the U.S. opioid epidemic, improving the affordability of health care, reducing the use of low-value care, and identifying emerging trends in health care utilization among children and young adults. He is the recipient of the Academic Pediatric Association Young Investigator Award and the AcademyHealth Nemours Child Health Services Research Award. His studies have been published in high-impact journals such as NEJM, JAMA, BMJ, JAMA Internal Medicine, JAMA Pediatrics, and Pediatrics, and have been covered by national media outlets such as The New York Times, CNN, and NPR.

Education

Ph.D., Health Policy (Evaluative Sciences and Statistics concentration), Harvard University, 2015
M.D., Washington University School of Medicine, 2007
B.S., Neuroscience, Vanderbilt University, 2002, summa cum laude

Projects

Selected Publications

Publications

Opioid Prescribing

Pediatric Opioid Prescribing

Chua KP, Shrime MG, Conti RM.
Effect of FDA investigation on opioid prescribing to children after tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy.
Pediatrics. 2017;140(6): e20171765. PMID: 29146621

Chua KP, Brummett CM, Conti RM, Bohnert ASB.
Association of opioid prescribing patterns with prescription opioid overdose in adolescents and young adults.
JAMA Pediatr. 2020; 174(2): 141-148. PMID: 31841589. PMCID: PMC6990690

Chua KP, Brummett CM, Conti RM, Bohnert ASB.
Opioid Prescribing to US Children and Young Adults in 2019.
Pediatrics. 2021; 148(3):e2021051539. PMID: 34400571. PMCID: PMC8778996.

Opioid Prescribing Limits

Chua KP, Brummett CM, Waljee JF.
Opioid prescribing limits for acute pain: potential problems with design and implementation.
JAMA. 2019; 321(7):643-644. PMID: 30703214

Dental Opioid Prescribing

Chua KP, Kenney B, Waljee JF, Nalliah RP, Brummett CM.
Dental opioid prescriptions and overdose risk in patients and their families.
Am J Prev Med. 2021; 61(2):165-173. PM. PMID: 33975766. PMCID: PMC8319034.

Surgical Opioid Prescribing

Waljee JF, Gunaseelan V, Bicket MC, Brummett CM, Chua KP.
Safety and Distribution of Opioid Prescribing among U.S. Surgeons in 2019.
Ann Surg. 2023 Jan 19. doi:10.1097/SLA.0000000000005802

Other Opioid Prescribing Studies

Chua KP, Brummett CM, Ng S, Bohnert ASB.
Association Between Receipt of Overlapping Opioid and Benzodiazepine Prescriptions from Multiple Prescribers and Overdose Risk.
JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(8): e2120353. PMID: 34374769. PMCID: PMC8356065.

Out-of-pocket spending

Chua KP, Lee JM, Conti RM.
Out-of-pocket spending for insulin and other health care services among privately insured patients with type 1 diabetes.
JAMA Intern Med. 2020; 180(7):1012-1014. PMID: 32478819. PMCID: PMC7265118.

Chua KP, Fendrick AM, Conti RM, Moniz MM.
Out-of-pocket spending for deliveries and newborn hospitalizations among the privately insured.
Pediatrics. 2021; e2021050552. PMID: 34140392

Chua KP, Conti RM, Becker NV.
Assessment of Out-of-Pocket Spending for COVID-19 Hospitalizations in the U.S. in 2020.
JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(10): e2129894. PMCID: PMC8524307. PMID: 34661662

Chua KP, Conti RM, Lagisetty P, Bohnert ASB, He S, Nguyen TD.
Association between cost-sharing and naloxone prescription dispensing.
JAMA. 2024; doi:10.1001/jama.2024.8378.

Low-value Care

Chua KP, Schwartz AL, Volerman A, Conti RM, Huang ES.
Use of low-value pediatric services among the commercially insured.
Pediatrics. 2016; 138(6): e20161809. PMID: 27940698. PMCID: PMC5127068

Chua KP, Fischer MA, Linder JA.
Appropriateness of outpatient antibiotic prescribing among privately insured US patients: ICD-10-CM based cross sectional study.
BMJ. 2019;364: k5092. PMID: 30651273. PMCID: PMC6334180

Chua KP, Conti RM, Becker NV.
U.S. insurer spending on ivermectin prescriptions for COVID-19.
JAMA. 2022 Feb 8;327(6):584-587. PMID: 35024763.

Medications for opioid use disorder

Chua KP, Dahlem CH, Nguyen TD, Brummett CM, Conti RM, Dora-Laskey AD, Kocher KE.
Naloxone and Buprenorphine Prescribing Following U.S. Emergency Department Visits for Suspected Opioid Overdose: August 2019-April 2021.
Ann Emer Med. 2022; 79(3):225-236. PMID: 34802772

Chua KP, Bicket MC, Bohnert ASB, Conti RM, Lagisetty P, Nguyen TD.
Buprenorphine dispensing after elimination of the waiver requirement.
NEJM 2024 Apr 25;390(16):1530-1532. PMID: 38657250. PMCID: PMC11103581.

Access to healthcare

Chua KP, Sommers BD.
Changes in health and medical spending among young adults under health reform.
JAMA. 2014;311(23):2437-2439. PMID: 24938568

Pediatrics

Chua KP, Conti RM, Freed GA.
Appropriately framing child health care spending – a pre-requisite for value improvement.
JAMA. 2018; 319(11):1087-1088. PMID: 29482195

Lee JM, Sharifi M, Oshman L, Griauzde DH, Chua KP.
Dispensing of Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists to Adolescents and Young Adults, 2020-2023.
JAMA. 2024 May 22: doi: 10.1001/jama.2024.7112. PMID: 38776113; PMCID: PMC11112492.