Shana Charles, PhD, MPP, is a faculty associate at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and an associate professor in the Department of Public Health at California State University, Fullerton. Charles's research focuses on discontinuous health insurance, particularly public coverage, and its impact on access to care, and underinsurance among those with coverage. She also specializes in political issues surrounding health care reform at both the state and the national levels. Charles continues as the director of the Center's biennial State of Health Insurance in California (SHIC) report, which has been published since 2001. She is also a member of the faculty task force on the Cost Team for the California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP), leading cost analyses of health insurance benefit mandate bills for the California Legislature.
Previously, Charles spent 15 years at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, with six years as director of the Health Insurance Studies Program and nine years as a senior research scientist. Charles regularly appears on numerous NPR and other talk radio programs to discuss health care reform issues and their impact, including "Press Play," "Take Two" and "Air Talk." Her work has received national media attention, including CBS Online News, NBC Nightly News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Politico.
Charles received her master's degree in public policy (health and regional development) from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and her PhD in health services (health policy) from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
About one in four Californians are immigrants, and half are from Latin America. Nearly 10% of California’s workforce are undocumented. Nearly three times more Hispanics/Latinx (about 12%) compared to their white peers were uninsured in California, according to a 2020 report from UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.