Senior Research Director
Sally Crelia, M.P.H., is a senior research director at L&M. She has extensive experience in various methods of qualitative research, including designing, conducting and analyzing results from cognitive and in-depth interviews, small group discussions, focus groups, and key informant interviews, in English and in Spanish.
Ms. Crelia has a particular interest in conducting healthcare-related research with vulnerable populations, including a wide range of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and their caregivers; racial and ethnic minorities; persons with limited English-speaking capability; and the uninsured and underinsured. She has also conducted research with a variety of healthcare professionals, community-based organizations, and advocacy groups that serve vulnerable populations.
Ms. Crelia currently leads several research projects for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) examining how various audiences understand and use information about the Medicare and Medicaid programs, as well as their experiences with the programs. Ms. Crelia recently assisted the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in evaluating its Supportive Services Demonstration, testing whether new approaches to service coordination in HUD’s elderly housing properties support aging in place and reduce costly and potentially avoidable use of high-cost healthcare services.
She led a series of focus groups with Medicare beneficiaries in several rural and metropolitan communities across the country in English and Spanish, as well as provider focus groups to understand the factors that impact preventive service utilization among vulnerable segments of the Medicare population. She also led design and implementation of a cognitive testing study of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Health Related Quality of Life survey questions and assisted the National Committee for Quality Assurance with cognitive testing of selected items on the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey in both English and Spanish.
Ms. Crelia holds an M.P.H. from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and is fluent in Spanish.