Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:

• Welcome, Introductions, Agenda Review, and Approval of April 2022 Meeting Minutes: The meeting opened with a general welcome among the group as well as reviewing the agenda. Introductions and a (re-)connection activities followed. Participants welcomed guest Jae Min Lee, Ph.D. from Minnesota State University. Minutes of the April 8, 2022 meeting were approved.
• Lightning Talks: In preparation for the discussion of the 2023-2028 project proposal, participants summarized their current and anticipated (next 5 years) individual research agendas in three-minute lightning talks.
• Advisor Comments and Discussion: Project Advisor J. Ernest Minton, Kansas State University, shared an administrative update and led the group in a discussion related to the project renewal process, future directions, and funding opportunities.
• 2023-2028 Project Proposal Discussion: Project participants were unanimous in their desire to pursue project renewal for 2023-2028. Project Chair Elizabeth Kiss led the group in a discussion of the project proposal process and components. She shared aggregated responses from a survey of project participants conducted to gather input for the proposal. Survey questions asked participants to: describe their research focus in five keywords, list large public datasets they have experience with, list the top five journals they have published in over the past five years, list the journals they would like to publish in over the next five years, list conferences they regularly attend and those they would like to attend, journal they review for and would like to review for, and competitive grant programs they have reviewed for. Participants broke into small groups and reviewed areas of strength and opportunity and began to discuss scope, objectives, and methods to pursue in the next project. Small group discussion was captured via Jam Board at https://jamboard.google.com/d/11RtEeQB2M3z7xMuqrrrwMjm4KjVDiR43TCQDQFjVJYg/edit?usp=sharing
• Election of Secretary: Brandan Wheeler was elected to a two-year term as secretary to run from July 2022 through the annual meeting in 2024.
• Scheduled Monthly Meetings for 2022-2023: Monthly meetings will continue to be held via Zoom on the second Friday of the month from 1-2 p.m. CT.

Accomplishments: Decisions made by individuals and families related to health are intrinsically also related to financial decisions. There is a pressing need to understand how American households make health decisions in relation to financial decisions and how the health of household members affects household finances and vice versa. Because resources are not unlimited, households make tradeoffs between the human capital of health and financial capital when managing their resources. Over the past year, the NC2172 project team has continued to pursue scholarly activities that can enhance stakeholders understanding of the relationship and impacts of decisions related to health and finances as well as the how individuals and families make these decisions.

Short-term Outcomes: No outcomes to report at this time.

Outputs: In October 2022 additional data were collected through the Rand American Life Panel, Well Being 581 - Omnibus Survey [W10 2000 Oct 2021]. This data relates to and can be analyzed with data collected last year. A conference paper and presentation have been completed using this data. Data were also collected with funding from a grant from Wells Fargo. The title of the project is, “Investigating financial impact of COVID-19 on low to middle income families.” Abstracts for 2022 conferences have been submitted based upon this research. Finally, in order to further our understanding of household financial and health decisions, Qualtrics was contracted to collect nationally representative data using a survey developed by project participants. A conference paper will be presented in November 2022 that utilizes this data.

Activities: Monthly meetings were held via Zoom. Project teams met regularly to work on tasks related to data collection, data analysis, and dissemination. Oral and poster presentations were given based on scholarship conducted by project members.

Griesdorn, T. S., Delgadillo, L., & Erickson, L. (2022). 4 pillars of financial well-being. Financial Planning Symposium, University of Alabama Birmingham, April 2022. (Virtual conference).

Heo, W., & Cho, S. H. (November, 2021). Tracking financial stress before/during the COVID-19 pandemic & introduction of short version of APR financial stress scale, Oral Presentation at Financial Therapy Association Annual Conference (Online participation by COVID-19).

Kim, J., Chatterjee, S., Chung, S. R., Griesdorn, T., DeVaney, S. A., Wounded Head, L., White, K., Russell, M. & Morishige. “Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Low to Moderate Income Households and People of Color.” Poster at the American Council of Consumer Interests (ACCI) Annual Conference on May 20, 2021. 

Xu, Y., Heo, W., Kiss, D. E., Cho, S. H., & Gutter, M. S. (2022). “Pushing or clicking the grocery cart? Health and economic concerns during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Oral presentation at the American Council on Consumer Interests Annual Conference, May 18-21, Clearwater, FL.

Xu, Y., & Yao, R. (2021). COVID-19 pandemic and household financial vulnerability. Oral presentation at the American Council on Consumer Interests Annual Conference, May 18-21, Virtual.

Milestones: Project members continue to summarize relevant and recent literature on basic and applied empirical work related to consumer issues related to health care financial management. They also continue to use qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection related to health care financial management. In the past year, three unique data sets were collected and analyzed with results being disseminated at academic conferences.

Awards: The peer-reviewed article, “Rural healthcare providers’ perceptions of patient    financial well-being and integrating financial capability services,” which was published in the September 2021 issue of the Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal (FCSRJ), was selected as the Best Paper in Personal Finance and Consumer Economics for FCSRJ for 2021. Winners of the Best Paper awards were honored at the 113^th AAFCS (American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences) Annual Conference in June in Orlando, Florida. Project collaborators and NC2172 participants when the research was conducted include: Suzanne Bartholomae (IA), Carrie Johnson, and Elizabeth Kiss. Additional collaborators include J. Michael Collins (WI) and Carol Janney (MI). Funding for the project was received from the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development in FY 18-19.

Bartholomae, S., Kiss, D.E., Collins, J.M., Johnson, C.L. and Janney, C.A. (2021), Rural Healthcare Providers’ Perceptions of Patient Financial Well-Being and Integrating Financial Capability Services. Family and Consumer Science Research Journal, 50: 27-41.

Heo, W., Rabbani, A.*, & Lee, J. M. (2021). Mediation between financial risk tolerance and equity ownership: assessing the role of financial knowledge underconfidence. Journal of Financial Services Marketing, 26, 169-180. doi: 10.1057/s41264-021-00088-y

Porto, N., Cho, S. H., & M. S. Gutter. (2021). Student loan decision making: Experience as an anchor. Journal of Family Economic Issues, 42, 773-784. Doi: 10.1007/s10834-021-09773-5

Rabbani, A., Heo, W.*, & Grable, J. E. (2021). The role of financial literacy in describing the use of professional financial advisors before and during the COVID‑19 pandemic. Journal of Financial Services Marketing, 26, 226-236. doi: 10.1057/s41264-021-00109-w

Rabbani, A. G.*, Heo, W., & Lee, J. M. (2021). A latent profile analysis of college students’ financial knowledge: The role of financial education, financial well-being, and financial risk tolerance, Journal of Education for Business, 97(2), 112-118. doi: 10.1080/08832323.2021.1895046

Xu, Y., & Yao, R. (2022). Financial Decision-Making Responsibility and Household Wealth Accumulation Among Older Adults: A Comparative Advantage Perspective. Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning.

Xu, Y., & Yilmazer, T. (2021). Childhood socioeconomic status, adulthood obesity and health: The role of parental permanent and transitory income. Social Science & Medicine, 283, 114178.