1050 Wishard Blvd
Indianapolis, Indiana
46202

Dr. Heather L. Taylor is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and an Affiliate Research Scientist at the Regenstrief Institute. She is a health services and health policy researcher whose work sits at the intersection of oral health, mental health, health informatics, and population health policy, with a particular focus on improving oral and mental health care for low-income and underserved populations.
Dr. Taylor began her professional career as a licensed dental hygienist, practicing in both private and community settings and working extensively with underserved populations. These clinical experiences directly inform her research agenda, which is grounded in real-world health system challenges and policy-relevant questions. She earned her MPH and PhD in Health Policy and Management from Indiana University, where she also completed a competitive National Library of Medicine Population and Public Health Informatics Fellowship. Her doctoral dissertation, recognized with Indiana University’s Distinguished PhD Dissertation Award, used advanced econometric methods and large Medicaid claims datasets to examine patterns of dental care use among low-income adults.
Dr. Taylor’s research program leverages health systems data, including electronic health records, medical and dental claims, and administrative datasets, to evaluate access to care, utilization patterns, and downstream health and economic outcomes. Her scholarship challenges widely held assumptions in oral health and mental health policy, including the presumed benefits of preventive dental care on medical spending and the strength of the oral–systemic health link. She has published extensively in leading peer-reviewed journals such as JAMA Health Forum, Health Services Research, American Journal of Managed Care, and the Journal of the American Dental Association, and her work has informed state Medicaid policy reforms and legislative testimony.
Dr. Taylor is the Principal Investigator of a National Institutes of Health K01 Mentored Career Development Award from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, which supports her NIH-funded research to leverage health systems data to reduce oral health disparities. Through this work, she is developing predictive models to identify adults at risk of seeking emergency department care for non-traumatic dental conditions, with the goal of informing upstream, system-level interventions that improve access to appropriate oral health care.
In addition to her research, Dr. Taylor teaches graduate-level courses in U.S. Health Care Systems and Health Policy within the MPH program, delivering instruction in live, hybrid, and online formats. Her teaching emphasizes critical evaluation of health policy, health system organization, payment, and regulation, and prepares future public health leaders to understand and navigate the structural forces shaping access, cost, and quality of care in the U.S. health system.