Georgia Health Policy Center
Georgia Health Policy Center, established in 1995, provides evidence-based research, program development and policy guidance on local, state and national levels to improve health status at the community level.
The center distills its qualitative and quantitative research findings to connect decision makers with the objective research and guidance needed to make informed decisions about health policy and programming.
In addition to celebrating its 10th Anniversary, the center welcomed the relocation of Georgia Health Decisions, a nonprofit, grassroots group giving greater voice to the values and opinions of Georgians on a wide range of issues including end‑of‑life care, health insurance and rural health services.
Projects to date focus on some of the most complex policy issues facing healthcare today, including public and private health insurance coverage, long-term care, children's health and community health system development. Karen J. Minyard is the director of GHPC.
In This Section:
Programs and Projects
Georgia Health Policy Center works to fulfill its mission by gathering, analyzing and disseminating information in a manner that fosters collaboration and innovation and builds trust and relationships with local, state and national, public and private agencies interested in improving health status at the community level. More than $700,000 supports a wide range of the center's projects designed to improve health status.
Public Health. Karen J. Minyard, Ph.D., Tina Anderson-Smith, Chris Parker. Georgia Health Policy Center performed an assessment of Georgia’s public health system to more clearly define public health’s “core business” especially as it relates to the broader system of health and health care in the state; gain an accurate understanding of the public’s perception of the role of public health; examine the areas of existing service overlap; and investigate opportunities for increased collaboration with various health care providers and stakeholders. ($217,000)
Public Health. Karen J. Minyard, Ph.D., Tina Anderson-Smith, Chris Parker. Georgia Health Policy Center is assisting the Division of Public Health in public dialogue and local action steps to improve the health status of Georgians. As a portion of this work, the center helped convene more than 900 Georgians in November at the Summit for a Healthy Georgia where participants identified and agreed upon health areas of emphasis for the state. ($211,000)
Southern Rural Health Consortium. Karen Minyard, Tina Anderson-Smith, Lindsey Lonergan. Georgia Health Policy Center conducted research and facilitated strategic planning for the Southern Regional Health Consortium, which is comprised of eight Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, East Texas and West Virginia. ($92,000)
State Rural Health Plan. Tina Anderson-Smith, Lindsey Lonergan. Georgia Health Policy Center developed a process to help the state Office of Rural Health Services create a strategic blueprint for improving the health of rural Georgians. ($32,500)
Obesity and Chronic Disease. Mary Ann Phillips, Bernette Sherman. Georgia Health Policy Center is under contract with the Georgia Division of Public Health to assist with a planning grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide state leadership for the prevention of obesity and other chronic diseases by promoting good nutrition and physical activity. Staff activities include conducting extensive literature review, coordinating statewide survey of public health staff and their partner organizations, and facilitating statewide task force. ($166,275)
Community Health Leadership Program. Chris Parker. The Community Health Leadership Program Office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation engaged the Georgia Health Policy Center to assist its leaders in the state of Georgia in policy making. The leaders of these diverse programs have common passions around ensuring access to healthcare for underserved populations and community input into state strategy. ($10,100)
Oral Health Data Project. Glenn M. Landers, Mei Zhou. Georgia Health Policy Center provided claims data analysis for the Georgia Oral Health Prevention Program, Division of Public Health staff. ($15,000)
Venture Philanthropy and Grant Making
Georgia Health Policy Center partners with public and private grant makers to leverage federal, state, local, and philanthropic resources to understand, prioritize, and structure investments in health issues.
Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia. Mary Ann Phillips. Georgia Health Policy Center serves as the administrative and technical home for the Collaborative. As a means of building a public/private partnership between the Georgia Department of Community Health and foundations, the Department provided state money to be used as a match for foundations and communities in responding to mutually agreed upon priority health care needs. Georgia Health Policy Center, in its role as coordinator of the activities of the Philanthropic Collaborative, serves as the liaison between the foundations and the Department of Community Health and the Division of Public Health.
Center staff coordinated the launch of an assessment to address a critical missing link in the control of childhood obesity in Georgia. Funded by the Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia, the Georgia Youth Fitness Assessment will add dimension to all that is known about childhood obesity and provide decision makers with the information needed to measure progress in efforts to reduce the number of its overweight children. ($725,000)
Healthcare Georgia Foundation. Mary Ann Phillips, Bernette Sherman. Georgia Health Policy Center was awarded a grant from the Healthcare Georgia Foundation to enhance Georgia’s school health capacity and conduct research to inform Georgia’s foundations about best options for collaborative work to address overweight children in Georgia. Staff work with the grantees to identify technical assistance needs, develop logic models and conduct an evaluation of their activities. The Center has collaborated with the Community Psychology Program to conduct the evaluation of the grantees. ($125,000)
Community Health Systems Development
Community Health Systems Development program focuses on increasing access to primary care and improving the health status of rural residents locally and nationally by restructuring local health care systems. More than $4 million in grants support Georgia Health Policy Center’s programs to increase access to care, improve health status and maximize limited health resources.
HRSA Office of Rural Health Policy. Georgia Health Policy Center won a major federal contract to improve health care access in some of the United States' most rural and medically-underserved areas. The grant will allow the Center to work in partnership with more than 70 rural health grantees (approximately 200 communities) in 40 states, including Georgia, to develop and sustain rural health organizations that aim to improve access to quality health care in their communities. ($1,061,417)
Rural Health Network Technical Assistance Program (RHN TAP). Patricia Kota. Georgia Health Policy Center works with communities in 30 states to provide technical assistance, facilitation, mediation, and consultation to the 52 Rural Health Networks and eight Delta State Rural Health Networks funded by HRSA Office of Rural Health Policy. ($1,427,860)
Access Georgia Rural Health Matching Grants Initiative. Patricia Kota. Georgia Health Policy Center administered the Rural Health Matching Grants Initiative to improve access and health status and reducing health disparities for underserved populations in rural areas. ($1,371,521)
Business Acquisition and Sustainability Intensives. Patricia Kota, Lindsey Lonergan, Dora Ward Kyabu. Georgia Health Policy Center helped networks across Georgia develop business and fundraising plans to increase sustainability. The initiative was made possible by the Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia, the Woodruff Foundation and the Georgia Department of Community Health. ($500,000)
Community Health Works Evaluation and Strategic Planning. Patricia Kota, Lindsey Lonergan, Tina Anderson-Smith. Georgia Health Policy Center conducted an evaluation of Community Health Works, a multifaceted rural health network serving the un- and underinsured in central Georgia, and the center currently is assisting the organization with its strategic planning. ($338,580)
Promotoras de Salud Evaluation, Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership. Dora Ward Kyabu. Georgia Health Policy Center conducted an evaluation of the rural health networks' Latina community lay health worker program. ($10,065)
Northern Sierra Rural Health Network Strategic Planning. Dora Ward Kyabu. Georgia Health Policy Center conducted an evaluation of the rural health networks' Latina community lay health worker program. ($14,925)
Georgia Health Policy Center helps shape how Georgia addresses the costs – both monetary and societal – of the uninsured. Private foundations and state and federal agencies invested more than $3 million projects to examine the role of community initiatives in managing care for the uninsured, study health care coverage for young adults, develop a strategy for providing affordable health insurance in Georgia and evaluate existing services including Medicaid, PeachCare for Kids and Indigent Care Trust Fund.
Urban Safety Net Study. Georgia Health Policy Center will assess gaps in the health care safety nets in select metro Atlanta communities and form collaborations to support improvements. Project supported by the Kaiser Foundation and The Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta. ($200,000)
HRSA State Pilot Planning Grant for the Uninsured. Karen J. Minyard, Ph.D., Glenn M. Landers, Tina Anderson-Smith, Beverly Tyler, Chris Parker, Lindsey Lonergan. Georgia Health Policy Center is implementing, on behalf of the Governor's office, a major federal grant aimed at reducing the number of uninsured. Georgia is one of only nine states selected for the grant to design pilot programs that have the potential to make health insurance more available and affordable throughout the state. Made possible by a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the pilot planning project allows Georgia to empower four of its communities to develop public/private partnerships and programs that positively impact the number of uninsured in their respective regions. Programs will be designed in the rural communities of Dalton and Brunswick, and in two urban centers, Atlanta and Macon. ($388,500)
HRSA State Planning Grant for the Uninsured Education and Outreach. Karen J. Minyard, Ph.D., Glenn M. Landers, Tina Anderson-Smith, Beverly Tyler, Chris Parker, Lindsey Lonergan. Georgia Health Policy Center received notice that the Health Resources and Services Administration awarded the Governor's Office another year of State Planning Grant work, which is staffed by the Center. The State Planning Grant team will incorporate all that it has learned though data collection and Pilot Planning activities into an experiential learning module to be used with 30 (small business/local government) community groups around Georgia. The findings will be synthesized for legislative, county commission, and other stakeholder audiences so the state will understand how it might further support the efforts of local communities in expanding coverage for the uninsured. ($175,000)
State Coverage Initiatives: Modeling Premium Supports. Pat Ketsche, Mei Zhou. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and in partnership with the Georgia Department of Community Health, the Georgia Health Policy Center modeled the cost and policy impacts of instituting a private market premium support program with emphasis on its effect for the uninsured children and the working uninsured living in rural Georgia. ($157,108)
Micro-simulation Model Development. William Custer, William Smith. With support from the Healthcare Georgia Foundation, the Center developed a micro-simulation model for evaluating the impact of multiple changes in eligibility or participation requirements for Medicaid and PeachCare on affected health consumers. The project will also quantify the economic impact on Georgia's economy resulting from federal Medicaid funds. ($107,500)
Making Coverage for the Uninsured: The Role of Community Initiatives. Karen J. Minyard, Ph.D., Chris Parker, Lindsey Lonergan. Funded by Commonwealth Fund and in partnership with Mathematica Policy Research, Georgia Health Policy Center studied five communities throughout the United States to understand how specific initiatives have developed and sustained financing to provide care for the uninsured, and present finding to inform policy makers and communities that are trying to replicate these projects. ($166,088)
Improving Outreach and Utilization in PeachCare for Kids and Medicaid. Mary Ann Phillips, Bernette McColley. In the third year of this contract, the Georgia Health Policy Center coordinated activities related to enhancing the utilization of primary care services for children enrolled in the Department of Community Health’s PeachCare for Kids and Medicaid programs. The activities included monitoring and evaluating grants awarded to six community agencies around Georgia. In addition to the work related to the utilization grantees, outreach materials were developed in both English and Spanish to explain some of the Department’s programs. ($953,708)
Evaluation of Georgia's Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Mei Zhou, Mary Ann Phillips, Kathleen Adams. Georgia Health Policy Center is analyzing data from Georgia's health insurance program to serve low-income children, PeachCare for Kids. The analyses assess the program's effectiveness in achieving several goals: improved access to insurance, improved access to primary care, access to high-quality health services, and better health outcomes. The effort includes an evaluation of health insurance claims data. Results support policy and program development at DMA, and also are reported to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to be combined with results of other state CHIP programs. ($346,212)
Member and Provider Satisfaction Surveys and Analysis for Georgia Medicaid and PeachCare Claims Service. Glenn M. Landers, Mei Zhou. Under contract with Affiliated Computer Services, the Georgia Health Policy Center conducts semi-annual provider and member satisfaction surveys and analysis to ensure high levels of service from one of the state's largest vendors. ($499,000)
The Child Policy Initiative aims to improve child outcomes and child and family policies in Georgia through applied policy analysis and research. More than $700,000 in grants, from public and private sources, funds programs in the areas of school health, childhood obesity, and child well-being.
Building Strong Families. Karen J. Minyard, Ph.D., Chris Parker. The Building Strong Families (BSF) project is an important opportunity to learn whether well-designed interventions can help couples fulfill their aspirations for a healthy marriage and a strong family. The project will test interventions with low-income, unwed couples who are interested in marriage, beginning during pregnancy or around the time of their child’s birth. The programs will be designed to help such couples strengthen their relationship, achieve a healthy marriage if that is the path they choose, and thus enhance child and family well-being. ($325,065)
Child Policy Speaker Series and Symposium. Erdal Tekin, Karen J. Minyard, Ph.D. Georgia Health Policy Center brought five nationally renowned speakers together with more than 200 academicians, practitioners, and policy makers to link research, practice, and policy and hosted an all-day Symposium to facilitate discussions to strengthen connections between the three. These events were made possible by the UPS Foundation and the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. ($322,000)
Evaluation of The Bridge. Mary Ann Phillips, Mei Zhou, James Emshoff, Dawud Ujamaa. The Bridge is an intermediate care residential treatment center located in Atlanta for youth between the ages of 12 and 17. The purpose of this evaluation is to determine whether the effectiveness of the solution-focused approach as practiced by The Bridge improves measured outcomes for youth post-discharge relative to other therapeutic approaches. Staff is collaborating with the Georgia State College of Arts and Sciences' Community Psychology Program. ($22,000)
Georgia Health Policy Center is a respected voice on long-term care policy, program development and evaluation in Georgia. The program conducts sound, evidence-based research that contributes to the current body of knowledge on long-term care in the United States.
Real Choices System Change Grant: Peer Supports for the Elderly. Glenn M. Landers. As part of the Georgia Department of Human Resources' overall Real Choices Systems Change Grant, the Center will assist the department in identifying national models of peer support used to assist elderly individuals to transition from nursing facilities back into a community environment. The peer support model has proven to be successful in transitioning individuals with disabilities from institutions to the community, and it is thought that the model might be applicable to the aging community. ($35,000)
Publications
Georgia Health Policy Center authored 12 Community Stories about Georgia's Rural Health Networks and published them in Celebrating Georgia's Rural Health Networks, June 2005.
Georgia Health Policy Center. "State Health Spending: An Eight State Analysis," January 2005.
Georgia Health Policy Center. "Lessons from Local Access Initiatives: Context, Sustainability and Replication," Public Health, March 2005.
Georgia Health Policy Center. "State of Georgia's Health and Health Spending," Issue Brief, Peer Support, February 2005.
Georgia Health Policy Center. Tina Anderson-Smith, Chris Parker. "Understanding the Core Business of Public Health in Georgia,” January 2005.
Georgia Health Policy Center. Glenn Landers. "Georgia’s Aging Population: What to Expect and How to Cope,” with Clare Ritchie, David Sjoquist, Sally Wallace, and Angelino Viceisza, Fiscal Research Center, September 2005.
Georgia Health Policy Center. Glenn Landers. “Peer Support for the Elderly in Georgia,” Issue Brief, Georgia Health Policy Center, August 2005.
Georgia Health Policy Center. Glenn Landers. “Georgia’s Growing Elderly Population and Revenue Growth,” with Clare Ritchie and Sally Wallace, The Fiscal Impact, No. 2, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Ga., January 31, 2005.
Georgia Health Policy Center. Glenn Landers. “Budgetary Implications of Georgia’s Aging Population,” with Clare Ritchie and Sally Wallace, The Fiscal Impact, No. 3, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Ga., January 31, 2005.
Georgia Health Policy Center. Glenn Landers. "Georgia's Foster Care Program and the Medicaid System," Issue Brief, Georgia Health Policy Center, January 2005.
Georgia Health Policy Center. Mary Ann Phillips. "Investment in School Health Makes a Difference: Impact of the School Health Matching Grants Initiative," on behalf of the Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia.
Working Papers
Glenn Landers with John O’Looney (University of Georgia) and Louis Kudon (Georgia Division of Public Health). “Avoidable Hospitalizations: An Analysis for Potential Strategic Action and Change,” Working Paper, Georgia Health Policy Center, February 2005.
Sally Wallace with Monica Herk. “Georgia Health Policy Center Policy Brief: Cost of Teen Births and Prevention,” April 2005.
Sally Wallace with Lakshmi Pandey and Erdal Tekin. “The Link between Teen Childbearing and Employment in Georgia,” Joint FRC-GHPC brief, April 2005.
Sally Wallace with Lakshmi Pandey and Erdal Tekin. “Policy Brief: Teen Childbearing and Public Assistance in Georgia,” Joint FRC-GHPC brief, May 2005.
Mary Ann Phillips and Bernette Sherman, with Mark Rivera. “Evaluation Report Innovations to Increase Utilization of Services by Children Enrolled in Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids,” prepared for the Georgia Department of Community Health, January 2005.
Mary Ann Phillips and Bernette Sherman. “Environmental Scan: Analysis and Key Findings, The Survey of Breastfeeding, Nutrition, and Physical Activity Programs in Georgia,” prepared for the Georgia Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health, June 2005.
Mary Ann Phillips and Bernette Sherman, Rachel Ferencik, Jane Branscomb, Melissa Haberlin. “Obesity Prevention: A Literature Review of Promising Best Practices by Setting,” June 2005.
Events
The Georgia Health Policy Center, at the request of the governor's office, coordinated and facilitated a two-day meeting on the "Transformation to Consumer-Driven Medicaid" on November 17 and 18 at the Floyd Building. More than 260 Georgians, from a broad cross-section of the state and representative of all Medicaid stakeholders, brought many perspectives to the topic. The Center staff members are currently synthesizing the outputs from the meeting to feedback to all attendees.