Project Categories

Expanding Arenas: A Political History of Modern U.S. Health Policy

Award Year: 2004 Investigator: Lawrence Brown
Lawrence D. Brown, Ph.D. explores the political and historical forces that have shaped the federal government's growing role in health care delivery and financing since 1945. In his Investigator Award project, Expanding Arenas: A Political History of Modern U.S. Health Policy, Dr. Brown examines the rise and evolution of four policy "arenas" that he uses to categorize federal interventions in health care: subsidy, financing, reorganization, and regulation.

The Health and Social Consequences of Alcohol Taxation and Control

Award Year: 2002 Investigator: Philip Cook
For his Investigator Award project, The Health and Social Consequences of Alcohol Taxation and Control, Dr. Cook produces a broad and comprehensive account of the economic and public health effects of alcohol-excise taxation, age-based prohibition, advertising restrictions, and other control measures. The interesting history of alcohol control and the alcoholism movement is developed as important background in understanding current debates.

The Un-Natural History of Public Health: From Epidemics and Injuries to Chronic Illness and Bio-Terrorism

Award Year: 2002 Investigator: Gerald Markowitz, David Rosner
Since September 2001, America's public health infrastructure has received more attention than at any time since the polio vaccination campaigns of the 1950s. David Rosner, Ph.D., M.P.H. and co-principal investigator Gerald Markowitz, Ph.D. address the effects on the field of public health of new mandates and resources aimed at protecting Americans from bioterrorism.

A History of the Right to Health Care

Award Year: 2001 Investigator: Beatrix Hoffman
Despite current talk of "patient rights," healthcare as a right remains an elusive concept. In this study of assertions and denials of the right to health care in the U.S., Dr. Hoffman will focus on four major topics.

Privacy and Surveillance: The History and Politics of Public Health Reporting

Award Year: 2001 Investigator: Ronald Bayer, Amy Fairchild
Although surveillance has long been a feature of public health practice, there has been no systematic and comprehensive analysis that meaningfully relates the history of surveillance to current public health policy and practice. Drs.

Civil Rights and the American Health Care System: Conceptualizing a Law and Policy Framework in the New Health Environment for Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

Award Year: 2000 Investigator: Sara Rosenbaum, Joel Teitelbaum
Despite the high level of attention on health care discrimination during the debate over the Civil Rights Act of 1964, health care as a civil right has received relatively little attention since enactment. By examining the potential for using civil rights law to address disparities in access to care and health outcomes, the investigators will create a new framework for applying Title VI of the Act to today's health care system.

Disease Prevention as Social Change: A Comparative Study of Public Health Policymaking in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, and France

Award Year: 1994 Investigator: Constance Nathanson
This project explores social and political factors, which foster or impede effective public health policymaking, and the development of a sociological theory of change in parameters of health and disease. Historical and demographic research indicates that public health policies play a significant role in mortality decline and that these policies are the outcome of identifiable social and political processes. Dr.

Dynamic Institutions and National Health Care Policy Making

Award Year: 1994 Investigator: Mark Peterson
Beginning with the New Deal, Dr. Peterson explores the ways in which political and governmental institutions respond to the stimulus for public action, direct the choice of policy alternatives, and are influenced by various leadership activities. In related projects, two distinct patterns of health care policymaking are studied. The first concentrates on systemic policy change, assessing the debate over comprehensive health care reform in the context of past failures.

Moralism, Politics, and the Construction of Health Policy

Award Year: 1994 Investigator: James Morone
Dr. Morone investigates how morality influences health politics and policy. He: 1) designs a model that suggests how the political process changes when actors define policy questions in moral terms - e.g., irresponsible behavior or undeserving beneficiaries; 2) applies this analytic framework to six major health policy issues; and 3) contributes to health policy by explaining the latent moral politics that underlie contemporary approaches and programs.

The Nature, Evolution, and Implications of Tobacco Policy in the United States

Award Year: 1994 Investigator: Kenneth Warner
Dr. Warner produces a detailed history of the rise and fall of cigarette smoking in the U.S. in the 20th century both as a social phenomenon and as a major determinant of trends in health and health care. Special attention is devoted to the roles of tobacco-control research and policy. Synthesizing the leading work in this field, he provides a comprehensive analysis of the nature, origins, and consequences of tobacco policy in the U.S.

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