Medicare and Medicaid are the largest health insurance programs in the U.S. The impact they have on the health outcomes of Americans, and the role they play in the economy, are topics of endless discussion and debate.
But when it comes to the social effects of health insurance programs in other parts of the world, scholarship is sorely lacking.
That’s according to Abdullah Tirgil, who graduated from Northeastern in 2016. A professor at Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University with an interest in health economics, Tirgil hopes to close that research gap in his home country of Turkey by looking at some of the most pressing issues facing its vulnerable populations.
“I’m studying different aspects of health,” Tirgil says. “You guys do this in the United States a lot, but we’re just starting to work on these things.”