Health Affairs, 27, no. 6 (2008): 1733-1735 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.27.6.1733 © 2008 by Project HOPE	New Online   House Health Reform Bill   Paying for Reform   Vetting AHIP's Report   HIV/AIDS Costs   Brief: Insurance Reform   HA Blog Top 10

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GrantWatch

EDITOR’S NOTE: Some parts of the GrantWatch section are published on the Web only. The online-only material frequently includes selected coverage of both recently announced grants and publications about or funded by foundations. (Reporting of selected grant outcomes and key personnel changes at foundations, as well as GrantWatch essays, reports, and interviews, are published in both print and online form.)

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GrantWatch is funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Children’s Health

New funding announced:

Twenty Children’s Health Initiatives (CHIs) in California.These CHIs will use this short-term funding for “premium subsidies” for Healthy Kids coverage—“low-cost health insurance for children not eligible for public programs,” according to a November 2008 California Endowment press release. (The Healthy Kids program “includes comprehensive health, dental, vision and mental health coverage.”) CHIs “are public-private partnerships that operate in counties across California”; they “have been overwhelmingly successful in reducing the number of uninsured children in the state,” the endowment maintained. Its funding is expected to subsidize the coverage of some 80,000 children in twenty-three counties. The money “will only help CHIs maintain their current level of enrollment and help stave off more children from losing health coverage,” the press release noted. CHIs “have not only demonstrated that they are highly efficient enrollment centers for families seeking health coverage for their children, but they also expand kids’ access to those health care services that result in a cost savings to the state by preventing unnecessary hospitalizations,” Robert Phillips, a senior program officer at the endowment, said in the release.

The CHIs will also “help enroll thousands more children” who are in fact eligible for, but are not enrolled in, Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) and Healthy Families, which is California’s State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

A total of $7.75 million awarded to twenty CHI grantees in California, over one year. Funded by the California Endowment.

Recent publications:

Connecting the Dots: Developing a Holistic Picture of Children’s Health, Grantmakers In Health (GIH), November 2008, 45 pp., http://www.gih.org/usr_doc/Connecting_the_Dots_Issue_Brief_2008.pdf. This issue brief is based on a June 2008 GIH program; the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Nemours Health and Prevention Services funded the event and the publication. The brief’s opening sentence states that “current definitions of child health transcend the historical biomedical model, which largely equated health with the absence of disease.” It goes on to say that “a comprehensive view of child health suggests that health care services are [just] one of many supports and resources needed to promote healthy children.” To promote this “more comprehensive vision” and “reduce fragmentation” of services, “health funders are being challenged to work in areas that may be outside their comfort zone.” The report describes three categories of strategies used by health funders “in recent years to develop a more comprehensive, coherent approach to children’s health.” A few examples of foundation activities in those areas are included, such as the Commonwealth Fund’s work in “pediatric preventive care.” (For more information on its program, click here.

The brief also mentions the Bingham Program, a charitable endowment established in 1932 that “has committed to a $1 million initiative to focus the state of Maine’s attention on the devastating personal and economic effects of violence against women and children.”

Health Matters: The Role of Health and the Health Sector in Place-Based Initiatives for Young Children, Amy Fine and Molly Hicks, November 2008, 106 pp., including appendices, http://www.wkkf.org/DesktopModules/WKF.00_DmaSupport/ViewDoc.aspx?LanguageID=0&CID=1&ListID=28&ItemID=5000555&fld=PDFFile. Funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “The long-term goal of [this] study is to better link children and families to the full array of services and supports needed to promote healthy growth and development,” the report states. Case studies of eight “exemplary” initiatives (all happen to be in states on the East and West Coasts) are described in an appendix. These “early childhood initiatives” all “include a strong and active health component.” Place-based initiatives are those “focused on integrating comprehensive services across health, education and family-support sectors to improve the lives of the young children and families living in a defined geographic area,” Al Yee of the Kellogg Foundation explained to Health Affairs. Areas can range from a neighborhood to a region of a state.

Related resources:

Data Resource Center (DRC) for Child and Adolescent Health, http://www.childhealthdata.org/content/AboutTheDRC.aspx. This Web site, a project of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI), is housed at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. The DRC is supported by HRSA.

“Delivering Preventive Oral Health Services in Pediatric Primary Care: A Case Study,” Dianne Riter, Russell Maier, and David C. Grossman, Health Affairs, November/December 2008, http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/6/1728. The lead author of this GrantWatch Report is a senior program officer at the Washington Dental Service Foundation, in Seattle.

“Should Congress Expand Health Insurance to Cover All Children? No,” Grace-Marie Turner, 11 December 2008 Galen Institute e-newsletter, http://www.galen.org/component,8/action,show_content/id,14/category_id,0/blog_id,1131/type,33/. Turner said in the newsletter that she was asked to write this commentary “as half of a point-counterpoint debate on using [SCHIP] as a vehicle to achieve universal coverage for children.” It ran “in several major newspapers,” she said. The position she took was “unpopular,” she conceded. In the commentary, she gives four reasons why, in her opinion, expanding SCHIP (which expires 31 March 2009) to cover all children “would be a mistake.” One reason, she says, is that such expansion “would ‘crowd out’ the private insurance many higher-income kids already have.” She adds, “Hawaii offers proof.”

“Should Congress Expand Health Insurance to Cover All Children? Yes,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), 7 December 2008, Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette, http://sundaygazettemail.com/Opinion/Op-EdCommentaries/200812060469. Maloney says that in the current fiscal environment (unemployment rising and many states having trouble borrowing “to meet budgetary gaps”), “it is critical that the federal government provide additional assistance to struggling families and states.” As for the crowd-out concern, she maintains that “our decade of experience with the [S]CHIP program shows it’s been rare for parents to deliberately drop private coverage to go on [S]CHIP.”

A Foundation’s Modified Funding Guidelines

Rose Community Foundation, located in Denver, released modified funding guidelines in October 2008. Whitney Connor, the foundation’s new health program officer, told Health Affairs that the main change in the health guidelines is that improving the cost-effectiveness of the health care system is a priority area now. To refresh your memory, Rose also funds in the areas of access to care, health policy and public health leadership, and primary prevention. Please note that this foundation only funds in the seven-county Greater Denver area. Questions? Send e-mail to wconnor{at}rcfdenver.org.

Minority Health; Disparities

Report received:

Hispanics and Health Care in the United States: Access, Information, and Knowledge, Gretchen Livingston, Susan Minushkin, and D’Vera Cohn, 13 August 2008, 78 pp., including appendices, http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/91.pdf. Published by the Pew Hispanic Center (part of the Pew Charitable Trusts) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). This report contains results of a survey of adult Latinos. The report notes that “Hispanics are the nation’s largest and fastest growing minority group.” The survey found that 27 percent of Latino adults do not have “a usual health care provider.” When those people are asked why that is, 41 percent responded that they are seldom or never sick. Also, the survey asked eight questions specifically to ascertain respondents’ knowledge of diabetes.

Announcement:

Kellogg Health Scholars Program, http://www.kellogghealthscholars.org/. This two-year postdoctoral fellowship program “develops new leadership in the effort to reduce and eliminate health disparities and to secure equal access to the conditions and services essential for achieving healthy communities.” Applications are under review; awardees will be announced in March 2009. The Center for the Advancement of Health directs this program, which is funded by the Kellogg Foundation.

Social Determinants of Health

Book received:

Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008–2009, Sarah Burd-Sharps, Kristen Lewis, and Eduardo Borges Martins, eds.; July 2008; 246 pp.; $75 (cloth), $24.95 (paper), http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/books/2008/11/25/the-measure-of-america-american-human-development-report-2008-2009/. This American Human Development Project book was published by Columbia University Press and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). The project is funded by Oxfam America, the Conrad N. Hilton and Rockefeller Foundations, and the SSRC, with additional funding from the Annenberg Foundation. (Sherry Glied is among the members of the project’s advisory panel.) This book “introduces the American Human Development Index, a single measure of well-being for all Americans based on indicators in three key areas: health, education and income,” according to a press release. It “is the first-ever measure of the status of human development in the United States or any developed nation and provides a snapshot of Americans’ well-being by state, congressional district, gender, race and ethnicity.” See the interactive maps. Ed Cain of the Hilton Foundation commented in the release, ”American philanthropies can use this report to identify where the needs exist and to guide their investments in programs that address those needs by providing better access to healthcare, education and jobs.” Policymakers will find in the report some “successful policies” in the United States “and other wealthy nations” and can learn from them. In the Human Development Index, overall, Connecticut ranked first among all states, and Mississippi ranked last, the book says. From the health area, which informs the overall index, the authors use “life expectancy at birth as a proxy for health," says a factsheet. They found that obesity, violence, and lack of health insurance are among the impediments to Americans’ living “a long and healthy life.”

Announcement:

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation honored David Wallinga with its third Annual Upstream Health Leadership Award, 20 November 2008. He directs the Food and Health program at the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis. Joan Cleary of the foundation said in a press release that "Wallinga is a leading voice for science-based public policies that better protect children from environmental pollutants, especially those that enter the food chain.” The foundation awarded a $15,000 grant to the institute “to support and advance its upstream work.” An example of such work would be “developing policies for more rigorous testing of chemicals and products before they enter the market,” Cleary said in the release. Read about the Blue Cross Foundation’s focus on Social Determinants of Health.

Related resource:

“Safe Routes to School—Steps to a Greener Future: How Walking and Bicycling to School Reduces Carbon Emissions and Air Pollutants,” Safe Routes to School (SRTS) National Partnership, December 2008, 14 pp., http://www.saferoutespartnership.org/media/file/SRTS_GHG_lo_res.pdf. Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

To provide an abbreviated background, the phrase “Safe Routes to School” was first used in Denmark in the 1970s; this movement “to create safe, convenient and fun opportunities for children to bicycle and walk to and from schools” has spread internationally since then, says the partnership’s Web site. In 2005 Congress provided $612 million in transportation funding over five years for a federal SRTS program to be implemented in all states and the District of Columbia. At the same time, the SRTS National Partnership was launched to make sure that the federal funding “is put to the best possible use.” (Deb Hubsmith, the organization’s director, pointed out to Health Affairs that the SRTS National Partnership does not receive any of the congressional funding.) The mission of the National Partnership “is to serve a diverse national community of organizations that advocates for and promotes the practice of safe bicycling and walking to and from schools throughout the United States,” its Web site states.

In late 2006 the RWJF awarded the SRTS National Partnership a three-year grant totaling more than $600,000 for its Safe Routes to School State Network project, which has locations in nine key states and the District, its Web page says. “A primary goal” of the network “is to reach children at the highest risk for obesity.” The Bikes Belong Foundation provides administrative support; the Bikes Belong Coalition provides monetary support; the CDC and Kaiser Permanente have provided matching funds for 2008 and 2009 for the network project.