Coretta Mallery Lankford

Principal Researcher

As a principal researcher at AIR, Coretta Mallery Lankford is the deputy director for the Health Learning Translation and Quality Measurement group responsible for leading the design and implementation of work to develop and implement quality measures and has specific expertise in developing measures for people with disabilities. Dr. Lankford’s work focuses on survey research design and implementation, development and credentialing of patient-reported outcome measures. She previously trained as a mental health counselor and brings this lens of direct patient work to her commitment to healthcare quality improvement and ensuring patient perspectives are reflected in healthcare measurement tools and other research and evaluation efforts.

Dr. Lankford currently leads the CMS, MIDS Qualified Health Plan Enrollee Experience Survey System project (2022–present) to oversee a national survey system to assess consumer's experiences with the qualified health plans that are sold on the Health Insurance Exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act. She also currently leads a project for FDA (2022–present) to conduct formative research toward a PROM or PerfO Measure for Ocular Bioelectronic Implants in patients with Profound Vision Loss.

Previously, Dr. Lankford led the validation of a screening tool to assess opioid misuse in people with disabilities including instrument design, planning the field test, and analysis of field test data. Additionally, she led the development, testing, and credentialling of a survey to evaluate the experiences of people receiving home- and community-based services (HCBS) based on the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Services (CAHPS). The HCBS CAHPS Survey, the first cross-disability survey of beneficiarie's experience receiving long-term services and supports, facilitates comparisons across the hundreds of state Medicaid HCBS programs throughout the country that serve different adult populations with disabilities—for example, frail elderly, individuals with physical disabilities, persons with developmental or intellectual disabilities, those with acquired brain injury, and persons with severe mental illness.

Coretta Lankford headshot
Expertise
Health
Patient, Family, and Stakeholder Engagement
Quality Measurement and Patient Safety
Services
Research & Evaluation

Ph.D., Mental Health Counseling, The George Washington University; M.A., Educational Psychology, Measurement, and Evaluation, University of North Carolina; B.S., Integrated Science and Technology, James Madison University

Contact Coretta Mallery Lankford

+1.202.403.5000
Related Work
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Improving Methods for Conducting Research with People with Cognitive Disabilities in Virtual Environments

Little is known about the most effective and accessible ways to engage people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in remote, virtual research. The purpose of this work is to conduct research toward the development of rigorous research methods and approaches that can be used in virtual environments to enable ...

Initial Qualitative Development Toward a PROM or PerfO Measure for Ocular Bioelectronic Implants in Patients with Profound Vision Loss

Over a million people in the U.S. are currently living with profound vision loss (PVL). This project conducted a literature review and patient focus groups to capture, categorize, and prioritize symptoms of PVL towards the development of a clinical outcome assessment.

Qualified Health Plan Enrollee Experience Survey System

AIR operates a national survey system to assess consumers’ experiences with the qualified health plans (QHPs) that are sold on the Health Insurance Exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Our researchers use the data to populate quality-improvement reports sent to QHP ...

Qualitative Study of Non-Clinical Support Services: Addressing the Needs and Preferences of Abortion Patients (Planned Parenthood Federation of America)

To better understand and address the needs and preferences of abortion patients who face significant obstacles to accessing care, this research helped to systematically develop and refine our knowledge of existing and best practices related to coordination of care and practical and logistical supports for those seeking abortion services. ...

CAHPS® Home- and Community-Based Services (HCBS CAHPS) Survey

The CAHPS Home and Community-Based Services Survey (HCBS CAHPS) elicits feedback from Medicaid enrollees about the quality of the long-term services and supports they receive in the community. As a subcontractor on this Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services project, AIR led qualitative research to develop survey items in the ...

Effectiveness of Public Deliberation Methods for Gathering Input on Issues in Healthcare: Results from a Randomized Trial

15 May 2015
The U.S. health care system’s complexity, coupled with the emotional and personal nature of serious illness or injury, often makes it difficult for policymakers to obtain informed public views to help guide decisions on complicated health care issues. This study found that public deliberation, which encourages people to become informed ...

Measuring Health Insurance Literacy

Health insurance coverage is key to accessing affordable, high-quality care. But do most Americans have the knowledge and skill they need to navigate or get the most out of their insurance plans? To answer this question, AIR researchers developed The Health Insurance Literacy Measure©, which consists of 21 self-report ...