• Co-investigators Carol M. Ashton, M.D., M.P.H., and Nelda P. Wray, M.D., M.P.H., both of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Improving the Evidence Base for Invasive Therapeutic Procedures.
• Jason Corburn, Ph.D., M.C.P., University of California, Berkeley. Toward the Healthy City: Urban Planning and Policy for Healthy People and Places.
• Co-investigators Thomas H. Gallagher, M.D., University of Washington, and Michelle M. Mello, J.D., Ph.D., M. Phil., Harvard University. Responding Justly to Patients Harmed by Medical Care: Disclosure, Compensation, and Litigation.
• David S. Jones, M.D., Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Rise and Fall of Cardiac Revascularization: Therapeutic Evolution and Health Policy in the Late 20th Century.
• Co-investigators Shoou-Yih Daniel Lee, Ph.D., and Bryan J. Weiner, Ph.D., both of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transformation of Government Health Care: Experience of the VHA.
• Frank Levy, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Curbing the Use of Medical Imaging – Searching for Efficient Technology Utilization in a Fee-for-Service World.
• Co-investigators Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.A.P., and Alexandra Minna Stern, Ph.D., both of the University of Michigan. History Informing Public Health Preparedness Policy in the 21st Century: A Qualitative Study of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions and Community Experiences during the 1918- 1919 Influenza Pandemic.
• David O. Meltzer, M.D., Ph.D., University of Chicago. Hospitalists and American Medicine: A Quantitative History of a New Medical Specialty.
• Dorothy E. Roberts, J.D., Northwestern University. Race Consciousness in Biomedicine, Law, and Social Policy.
• Frank J. Thompson, Ph.D., Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Medicaid: Political Durability, Democratic Process, and Health Care Reform.
• Peter A. Ubel, M.D., University of Michigan. Emotional Adaptation and the Goals of Health Care Policy.

This highly competitive funding program attracts investigators from a variety of disciplines, including medicine, nursing, public health, economics, sociology, political science, psychology, history, law, ethics, journalism, and public and social policy. A national advisory committee of distinguished experts from fields similar to those of the investigators reviews applications. Members of the 2007 national advisory committee (NAC) included:

• Paul D. Cleary, Ph.D., NAC Chair, Yale University
• Marilyn P. Chow, R.N., D.N.Sc., Kaiser Permanente
• Nicholas Christakis, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., Harvard University
• Susan Dentzer, Health Affairs
• Judy Feder, Ph.D., Georgetown University
• Clark C. Havighurst, J.D., Duke University
• Sherman James, Ph.D., Duke University
• Bruce G. Link, Ph.D., Columbia University
• Catherine G. McLaughlin, Ph.D., University of Michigan
• Christina H. Paxson, Ph.D., Princeton University
• Mark A. Peterson, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
• Mark J. Schlesinger, Ph.D., Yale University
• Rosemary A. Stevens, Ph.D., M.P.H., Weill Cornell Medical College
• Alvin R. Tarlov, M.D., University of Chicago
• William A. Vega, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
• Keith A. Wailoo, Ph.D., Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

RWJF created the Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research program to support researchers whose cross-cutting and innovative ideas promise to contribute meaningfully to improving health and health care policy. The program provides one of the few funding opportunities in the United States for investigator-initiated projects that are broad in scope, innovative in approach, and have national policy relevance. Since 1992, the Foundation has supported 147 projects involving 186 investigators.

“Through the Investigators’ program, the Foundation invests in ideas and individuals – investments that pay off long after the research grants have ended,” says Lori Melichar, Ph.D., economist and senior program officer in research and evaluation at RWJF. “The books and articles resulting from Investigators’ research contribute to the public discourse in health policy. The program also provides the Investigators with opportunities to join the debate on health policy issues and influence how policymakers think about the challenges of providing and financing health care and improving the health of the nation.”

David Mechanic, Ph.D., leads the RWJF Investigator Awards program, which is headquartered at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. “This program stimulates thinking that is creative and crosses disciplinary boundaries in search of knowledge and solutions to vexing issues affecting health and health care in the United States,” Mechanic says.