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NORC at the University Chicago

Heidi Whitmore

Pronouns: She/Her

Senior Fellow
Health Care Evaluation
Heidi has extensive expertise leading primary mixed mode data collection studies with both individuals and establishments. She also has decades of experience studying private health insurance.

Heidi is a senior fellow with over 30 years of experience with managing large scale data collection studies and contracts focused on topics such as military health, with a focus on veterans; employer health benefits; the small group market; and Affordable Care Act exchanges. She leads multiple primary data collection efforts focused primarily on veterans, employers, and the privately insured.  

Heidi has served as project director for numerous military health and health insurance studies, including for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Wounded Warrior Project, Covered California, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), and CCIIO as a subcontractor to AIR. She is project director for the VA’s ASCEND survey for veteran suicide prevention and for a survey component of the VA’s Together with Veterans Initiative, which aims to improve rural community-level suicide prevention initiatives. She managed a multi-year contract with the Wounded Warrior Project to conduct their Annual Warrior Survey, along with an annual survey of exchange members for Covered California, an annual survey of employer health benefits for KFF, and a technical assistance contract on plan management for CCIIO. For ASCEND, NORC led web, CATI mail instrument development, and cognitive testing for both for a pilot and wave one of national data collection, along with sampling designing a recruitment protocol collecting data from a large sample of veterans, data processing, and analysis and reporting. Wave two of data collection currently is underway. The results support a national surveillance system to document prevalence and trends over time in self-directed violence while providing estimates of the impact of risk and protective factors. Heidi has co-authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles.

Prior to coming to NORC, Heidi was a researcher at the Center for Studying Health System Change, a deputy director of research at HRET, a senior consultant at KPMG Consulting, as well as a research analyst with the American Association of Health Plans. 

Project Contributions

Annual Warrior Survey for the Wounded Warrior Project®

Assessing the well-being of injured veterans in the post-9/11 era

Client:

Wounded Warrior Project®

ASCEND for Veteran Suicide Prevention

A recurring national surveillance study to inform efforts to combat Veteran suicides

Client:

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Rocky Mountain Mental Illness, Research, Education and Clinical Center for Veteran Suicide Prevention

California Health Coverage Survey FAQ

An annual survey to inform improvements in California’s health insurance marketplace

Funder:

Covered California

Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Employer Health Benefits

A detailed picture of how health coverage for U.S. workers changes over time

Client:

Kaiser Family Foundation

Minnesota Reading Corps K-3 Impact Evaluation

NORC finds tutoring by AmeriCorps volunteers brought benefits to most young students

Client:

Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)

Minnesota Reading Corps Pre-K Program Evaluation

Demonstrating that AmeriCorps volunteer tutors can improve preschoolers’ literacy

Client:

Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)

Support for the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight

Improving options for health care coverage through the federal Health Insurance Marketplace

Client:

American Institutes for Research

Publications

Research Library & Findings