Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health

Phone:

(317) 278-5905

Email:

kaaellis@iu.edu

Departments:

Health Policy and Management

Degrees:

PhD, Health Policy and Management, Indiana University

MPH, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Indiana University School of Medicine

BA, History, Hanover College

Resume/CV

Biography

Dr. Katy Ellis Hilts is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management with the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health (IU FSPH). She received her MPH in Social and Behavioral Sciences in 2010 and her PhD in Health Policy and Management in 2020. Following her doctoral program, Dr. Hilts completed an NIH-NCI T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship in Behavioral Oncology with the IU School of Nursing, IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the Purdue College of Pharmacy. Prior to beginning her academic career, she spent eight years working with the Marion County Public Health Department in Indianapolis, IN, seven of which were spent in the tobacco control program. Dr. Hilts draws on her practice experience and connections to support her research and teaching.

Research Interests

Dr. Hilts’ research involves assessing how policies and systems-level strategies influence organizational practices to improve scalable, sustainable implementation of evidence-based interventions, such as tobacco dependence treatment, within and across healthcare settings. Her current work leverages her training as a health services researcher and background in tobacco control to support efforts to train and assist pharmacists in integrating tobacco cessation services (including prescribing) into practice. Dr. Hilts is particularly interested in how expanded access to these services in pharmacy settings can help address gaps in care among traditionally underserved groups, such as rural populations. Additional areas of interest include, cancer prevention and control, lung cancer screening, and community and practiced-based participatory research models.

Current Projects

• Advancing the Role of Pharmacy in Tobacco Cessation (National Cancer Institute, R25 CA236637)
• Role Co-investigator, Co-lead qualitative data collection and analysis
• The primary objective of this project is to enhance the impact of recent legislation in states where pharmacists have authority to prescribe smoking cessation medications and work toward widespread availability of trainings for all members of the pharmacy profession: pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in practice and preceptors of pharmacy students (i.e., future pharmacists).

Selected Publications

• Hilts KE, Corelli RL, Vernon VP, Hudmon KS. Update and recommendations: Pharmacists’ prescriptive authority for tobacco cessation medications in the United States. Journal of the American Pharmacists Association. (In press) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.japh.2022.06.005
• Hilts KE, Corelli RL, Prokhorov AV, Zbikowski SM, Zillich AJ, Hudmon KS. Implementing Brief Tobacco Cessation Interventions in Community Pharmacies: An Application of Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Theory. Pharmacy. 2022; 10(3):56. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy10030056
• Hilts KE, Yeager VA, Kooreman H, Smith R, Busching B, Spitznagle M. Public health and health care partnerships for improved tobacco cessation. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. 2022; 28(2):E404-E412 https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000001406
• Hilts KE, Hudmon KS, Benson AF, Elkhadragy N. Rural-urban disparities in tobacco use and the role of pharmacists in closing the gap. Journal of Rural Health. 2022 Mar; 38(2):355-359. https://doi.org/10.1111/jrh.12607
• Hilts KE, Blackburn J, Gibson PJ, Yeager VA, Halverson PK, Menachemi N. Impact of Medicaid expansion on smoking prevalence and quit attempts among those newly eligible, 2011–2019. Tobacco Prevention & Cessation. 2021;7(August):58. https://doi.org/10.18332/tpc/139812
• Hilts KE, Gibson PJ, Blackburn J, Yeager VA, Halverson PK, Menachemi N. Institutional factors associated with hospital partnerships for population health: A pooled cross-sectional analysis. Health Care Management Review. 2022 July/Sept;47(3):254-262. https://doi.org/10.1097/HMR.0000000000000325
• Hilts KE, Yeager VA, Gibson PJ, Halverson PK, Blackburn J, Menachemi N. Hospital partnerships for population health: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of Healthcare Management. 2021; 66(3):170-198. https://doi.org/10.1097/JHM-D-20-00172
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/katy.hilts.1/bibliography/public/