Louis McKinnon (LOO-ee muh-KIN-un)

I am a MD-PhD candidate at the University of Pennslyvania in the PhD program in Healthcare Management and Economics at Wharton. I seek to bring together large-scale clinical initiatives with econometric techniques to pioneer effective and equitable advancements at the frontier of healthcare technology. I seek to understand how we can ensure new medical resources are implemented and used in a way that is most effective for clinicians and best helps patients, especially where treatment options are limited and the potential for improvement is greatest. I am particulary interested in Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias.

From January 2023 to June 2025, I worked with Professors Amanda Kowalski, David Chan, and a team of interdisciplinary scholars across the University of Michigan and Michigan Medicine to analyze the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines using electronic health record (EHR) data and other rich individual level data on social determinants. I also currently lead the development of a new clinical initiative, the Washtenaw Clinic Community Collaboration (WC3), in collaboration with Lori's Hands, other local community organizations in Washtenaw, MI, and with Michigan Medicine.

My recent projects aim to advance telehealth equity and understand internet access as a rising social determinant of health. With Roots Community Health Center, I have spent the past three years raising awareness and providing enrollment support for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) among those impacted by systemic inequities in Oakland, CA. In conjunction, I have analyzed the extent to which internet serves as a “super” determinant of health among clinic patients and how the internet may underlie traditional determinants recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA).

Prior to my work at the University of Michigan, I graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with BA in Economics and BA in English Literature in December 2022. From May 2023 to December 2023, I held a part-time position with the Center for Health and the Social Sciences (CHeSS) at the University of Chicago. At CHeSS, I worked with Senior Methods Core Researchers and physician-economist Dr. David Melzter to improve operations on the hospitalist project and to curate datasets for other CHeSS affiliates. I also served as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) with Berkeley Medical Reserve Corps (BMRC) and as an outreach volunteer with the Berkeley Needle Exchange Emergency Distribution (NEED). As an international student from Japan and Australia, I have also contributed to published work as a visiting researcher with Hiroshima Institute of Health Economics Research (HiHER) at Hiroshima University.

Presentations

2023 Kling SMR et al. (2023). Assessing Broadband Access, Quality, and Use of Federal Internet Subsidies to Support Equitable Telehealth Access in a Safety-Net Setting. Poster presented at: 16th Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health. Arlington, VA.

2023 McKinnon et al. (2023). Assessing Broadband Access, Quality, and Use of Internet Subsidies in Telehealth Enabled Safety Net Setting. Roots Community Health Center. Oral and Poster presented at: North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) 2023 Annual Meeting. San Francisco, CA.

2022 Hoerter, J., & McKinnon, L. (2022). A 10-year Analysis of Pediatric Airway Foreign Bodies by Demographics, Disposition, and Foreign Body. Poster presented at: AAO-HNSF 2022 Annual Meeting & OTO Experience. Philadelphia, PA.

2022 Terilli, K., McKinnon, L., Reyes, M., Lu, J., Owen, S., Gomez-Lara, A., Lee, J., Shankar, A., & Woldeyesus, T. (2022, May 24). Roots Telehealth Support Program: A Community-Centered Approach Towards Bridging the Digital Divide. Poster presented at: UCSF Rodnick Conference.