Meet Professor Shirley L. Porterfield
Shirley L. Porterfield is a Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She previously held positions at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, the Rural Policy Research Institute, and Washington University in St. Louis. She is a research affiliate in Washington University’s Center for Social Development and a member of the program committee for the Signature Health Foundation. Dr. Porterfield teaches graduate-level courses in Program Evaluation and Health Care Policy.
Dr. Porterfield, who received her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, focuses her research on health policy, and work, family, and retirement issues associated with disability in children and working-age adults, with particular emphasis on issues facing lower-income families. Her articles on these and other topics can be found in journals such as Pediatrics, the American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Children and Youth Services Review, and Health Affairs. Dr. Porterfield has received research funding from several sources, most recently the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).
Research Methods
Program Evaluation
Health Policy
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1988
MS, University of Arizona, 1984
BS, Oregon State University, 1982
Papers
DeRigne, L. and S.L. Porterfield. 2015. Employment change among married parents of
children with special health care needs. Journal of Family Issues (accepted 7/2014), online
first, doi:10.1177/0192513X15572368.
Porterfield, S.L., Levin, S.G., and S.K. Feigenbaum. 2014. Influencing choice of branded or
generic statins by older adults in the USA. Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services
Research 5(3): 165-173.
Huang, J., S.L. Porterfield, M. Jonson-Reid, and B. Drake. 2012. Effects of child’s educational
disability on exits from and re-entries to cash assistance. Children & Youth Services Review
34(9): 1756-1761.
Porterfield, S.L. and L. DeRigne. 2011. Medical home and out-of-pocket medical costs for
children with special health care needs. Pediatrics 128(5): 892-900.
Sanders, C. and S.L. Porterfield. 2010. The ‘Ownership Society’ and Women: Exploring the
Ability of Women with Children to Accumulate Assets in America. Journal of Family and
Economic Issues 31(1): 90-106.
See Dr. Porterfield's CV for a complete list of publications.
Health Policy
Assets
Poverty
Work-Family Issues
