New PHSR Grants

Institution: The University of Tennessee
Title: Improvements in State Health Outcomes: State Public Health Systems Performance and State Health Department Responses to America’s Health Rankings
Principal Investigator: Paul Erwin, M.D.
Duration: 2/1/09–1/31/10
Paragraph Summary: Researchers will examine the relationships between changes in characteristics, inputs, and activities of state health departments (SHDs) and state public health systems, and changes in state-level health outcomes over the past 15 years.  Researchers will also examine how states have responded to America’s Health Ranking (AHR) reports in order to explore whether policy translates into action with positive effects on health outcomes.  The overarching questions to be examined are: 1) Why have some states made significant improvements in the AHR rankings, while others have not?; 2) What is the association between these changes in health outcomes and state public health systems performance?; and 3) How have SHDs responded to the AHR reports, and can we identify any specific changes in characteristics, inputs, and activities that might explain changes in health outcomes during the timeframe of the reports (1990-2007)? The objective of this project is to provide a clearer evidence-base for public health practice by effectively showing how state-level changes in inputs, processes, and outputs are connected to health outcomes.

Institution: University of Michigan
Title: Public Health Entrepreneurship
Principal Investigator: Peter D. Jacobson, J.D.
Duration: 2/1/09–7/31/10
Paragraph Summary: This project will explore the feasibility of characterizing, documenting, and disseminating existing public health entrepreneurial activities. Specifically, researchers will address the question: What are the activities public health entrepreneurs currently pursue to generate new sources of revenue and new service delivery innovations and what organizational adaptations encouraged or resulted from those activities? They will: 1) identify existing entrepreneurial public health activities and assess the public health system’s organizational capacity to engage in such initiatives; 2) identify ways that public health practitioners can use entrepreneurship to enhance the capacity to improve population health; 3) share identified practices across public health practitioners; and 4) stimulate a wide-ranging debate among public health advocates, practitioners, and policymakers about the role of entrepreneurship in how the public health system can best be organized to meet population health challenges.  The objective of this project is to provide public health policymakers and practitioners with the first systematic description of innovative strategies to generate new revenues or more efficient and effective practices to improve population health.

Institution: RAND Corporation
Title: Mapping the Gaps: Enhancing Local Health Departments Capacity to Match Services to Health Needs
Principal Investigator: Tamara Dubowitz, Sc.D.
Duration: 2/1/09–1/31/11
Paragraph Summary: The researchers will assess whether and how geographic information systems (GIS) can be employed by local health departments (LHDs) to inform planning efforts so that they more closely align community health needs with public health services and programs. Specifically they will: 1) examine how LHDs in California and Florida collect and use data to quantify community health needs and distribute LHD services and expenditures; and 2) work with LHD partners to create a gap analysis that identifies spatial congruencies and mismatches between community health needs and the distribution of LHD programs and services. The objective of this project is to help shape decision making by policymakers by providing them with clear illustrations of the need for additional resources or redirection of current services and programs. 

Institution: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Title: The Influence of Accreditation on Local Health Department Performance in NC
Principal Investigator: Mary Davis, Dr.P.H.
Duration: 2/1/09–1/31/11
Paragraph Summary: The researchers will explore the influence of accreditation among North Carolina’s local health departments (LHDs) on improvements in service delivery and health outcomes measures. Specifically, this study will examine if accredited LHDs in North Carolina demonstrate greater improvements in service delivery outputs and health indicators when compared with non-accredited health departments, and examine other factors that could influence this relationship.  It will explore the extent and rate by which LHD accreditation influences service delivery and health indicators as well as factors that affect this influence, and key outcomes which are of interest in implementing an accreditation program.  The objective of this project is to inform the development of the national public health accreditation model.


To view all grants from special topic solicitations in public health systems research and their findings, please visit http://hcfo.net/phsr_grants.htm.
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