Unpacking Health Policy Research: From Developing Questions to Impactful Programs

1. Pilot Project Program TA Webinar 2: Health Policy Research and Developing a Letter of Intent TCC Administrative Core Morehouse School of Medicine December 9, 2015

2. Official Statement • "The project described was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Grant Number U54MD008173, a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NIMHD or NIH.”

3. Overview/Agenda • Recap of TCC Overarching Goals • Deconstructing “Health Policy Research” • Keys to a solid health policy research question • Research project examples • Goal and basic components of LOI • LOI requirements for TCC Pilot Project Program • LOI examples • Final Words • Q&A Session • End Webinar

4. Deconstructing Health Policy Research

5. What is Health Policy? • Collective or authoritative decisions made by governments, organizations, institutions, and communities that directly or indirectly impact health and health equity.

6. What is Health Policy? • Laws, regulations, and statutes • How laws are enforced and carried out • Allocation of resources • Leadership and decision-making • Across all sectors on the physical, mental, and social well-being of individuals, communities, and populations.

7. The Policy Cycle

8. TCC Health Equity Lens: Achieving health equity requires valuing everyone equally with focused and ongoing societal efforts to address avoidable inequalities, historical and contemporary injustices, and the elimination of health and health care disparities.

9. Policy Dilemmas at Play No policy exists Policy is not effectively implemented Policy in place, but yields unexpected or deleterious consequences

10. Anticipated Policy Impacts (McKinlay Model) Community and Population-level Policy Change Systems and Service Delivery Change Individual/group knowledge, behaviors and capacity to facilitate policy change Informing Health Policy with Evidence Based Science Upstream impacts Midstream impacts Downstream impacts

11. Informing Policy with “Evidence-Based Science” TRANSLATE knowledge into meaningful information GENERATE knowledge through research DISSEMINATE Information to diverse audiences

12. What we DON’T do…… • TCC is strictly prohibited from participating in or providing support for lobbying and/or political advocacy activities • Influencing certain federal contracting and financial transactions • Using Federal funds to pay any person for influencing or attempting to influence any officer or employee of an agency, a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress with respect to the award • Source: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/nihgps/index.htm

13. Sample Health Policy Research Question(Pilot Project Program) • Title: Policy/environmental supports for healthy eating & exercise on college campuses • Population and Disparity: College-aged students are at considerable obesity risk due in part to poor diets, low-levels of physical activity (PA), and other negative health behaviors inherent to the college environment. The transition from high school to college has been identified as a critical period of weight gain and decline in healthy behaviors. To date, there has been little focus on the college environment for obesity prevention strategies, and almost no focus on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) campuses. • Project Aims: The proposed project will assess environmental and policy supports for healthy eating and PA at an HBCU. We will assess a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) in the same city for comparison and to identify disparities. A mixed methods approach will be used to collect quantitative and qualitative data on the environment and student/faculty/staff knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and preferences associated with health status and health-related behaviors. • Relevance to TCC: Data will be used to further understand/identify strategies to improve health among college students, particularly racial/ethnic minority students who are at higher risk for developing chronic disease, and to improve supports for healthy eating and physical activity on college campuses.

14. Other “Fundable” Health Policy Topic Areas • Investigating the Impact of Georgia Medicaid Policy on Access, Resource Utilization, and Health Outcomes for Patients with Stage D Heart Failure • Collaboration Across the Community- Conducting a mini-needs assessment with medical providers around existing best practices and cultural competency in the care of transgender patients. • HIV/AIDS and STI Policy, Practice, and Surveillance among Transgender Individuals in Memphis, TN • Pilot Study of Smart and Secure Children Quality Parenting Program in Pediatric Primary Care • Exploring cancer literacy and cancer screening among older Korean Americans • Community based participatory research to reduce disparities in kidney transplantation • Integration of a Community Health Worker Intervention into Maternal Care Coordination Service

15. Letter of intent (LOI)

16. What is a Letter of Intent (LOI)? • A declaration of one’s intent to respond to a funding announcement by submitting a competitive proposal. • Typically non-binding • An opportunity to present your proposal ideas, and obtain critical feedback prior to submitting a full application. • Mandatory, however not considered in the final scoring of the full proposal submission.

17. Letter of Intent (LOI) Components

18. LOI Submission, Review, and Feedback • Sample LOI available on TCC Pilot Project Portal: http://www.msmtcc.org/pilotproject • LOI deadline: Monday, December 21, 2015 @ 5:00 pm EST • Submit via Pilot Project Portal: http://www.msmtcc.org/pilotproject • Written feedback provided within 10 business days of LOI submission. • After the LOI deadline we will not respond to any requests to review research plans, abstracts, or proposal drafts prior to full application submission.

19. Tips for developing a competitive research question and LOI

20. Words of Wisdom • Assume that we are NOT the experts • Cite recent literature and statistical data whenever possible. • Hit all the points and be CONCISE (1-2 pages is all you need) • Be innovative! • Have somebody else read your LOI before you submit • Make sure your policy issue/dilemma is clearly articulated • BREATHE and SUBMIT YOUR IDEA

21. Q & A Session

22. For More Information: TCC Pilot Project Portal: http://www.msmtcc.org/pilotproject Key Contact: Divine Offoegbu, DrPH, MS Program Manager TCC for Health Disparities Research Morehouse School of Medicine 404-752-1933 doffoegbu@msm.edu Follow TCC on Social Media!!

23. Message from Dr. Satcher:I am looking forward to reviewing your LOIs!Best of Luck!