Designing a Countywide Framework to Optimize Public Health Investments
Elissa Schuler Adair
Fresno County — Department of Public Health
ELISSA SCHULER ADAIR mobilizes communities, advances learning, and measures impact across corporate, nonprofit, media, academic, and government sectors. She co-founded the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center and, recently, at EVISET, built a digital platform that collects client feedback for Medicaid 1115–waiver social services, using LLM-assisted analysis to speed up insight generation by 5x. A 2023–24 Fulbright Scholar to Timor-Leste, she designed the national middle school health curriculum, centering skill application to instill healthy habits. Dr. Adair holds a BA from Princeton University and a PhD from Imperial College London, with fieldwork in Brazil. She is fluent in Portuguese.
Project
Fresno County and FUSE are partnering to design a countywide return-on-investment (ROI) framework that links public health spending to measurable outcomes. The project will strengthen data-driven decision-making, improve resource allocation, and advance equity in health services. FUSE Executive Fellow Elissa Schuler Adair will develop and pilot an ROI methodology and analytical toolkit. Ultimately, this work will enhance accountability and improve health outcomes across Fresno County.