Children's Health Policy: Actors, Issues, and Process

Award Year: 1998	Investigator: Kay Johnson, Alice Sardell	Budget: $249,782	Categories: Child Health
Abstract: This project analyzes how the process of policymaking has shaped children's health policy in the U.S. during the last 20 years. Using analytic models derived from political science literature, it examines and compares the origins, history, and fate of seven major proposals to expand child health services or financing. These include Medicaid expansion, children's health insurance, immunization, school-based clinics, definitions of childhood disability, and home visiting. The major research questions are: 1) how has the process of policymaking shaped policy outcomes in child health? and 2) what are the implications for future policy directions? After better understanding the roles of key actors, their interactions, and the broader political and social environment in which they occurred, the investigators will describe conditions that may help assure the success of future efforts to increase access, and recommend effective advocacy strategies. This work adds crucial political and policy process analysis to the current body of information about financing and delivery of child health services.