• Co-principal investigators Peter S. Bearman, Ph.D. (Columbia University), and Hannah Brückner, Ph.D. (Yale University and Columbia University)
• Charles L. Bosk, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania)
• Jonathan P. Caulkins, Ph.D. (Carnegie Mellon University)
• M. Robin DiMatteo, Ph.D. (University of California, Riverside)
• Pamela Braboy Jackson, Ph.D. (Indiana University, Bloomington)
• Co-principal investigators Barbara Katz Rothman, Ph.D. (City University of New York, Baruch College), and Rachel Grob, Ph.D. (Sarah Lawrence College)
• Co-principal investigators Jay S. Kaufman, Ph.D. (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and Richard S. Cooper, M.D. (Loyola University)
• David McBride, Ph.D., M.Phil. (Pennsylvania State University)
• Co-principal investigators Kimberly J. Morgan, Ph.D. (George Washington University), and Andrea Louise Campbell, Ph.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
• Co-principal investigators Thomas H. Rice, Ph.D., and Yaniv Hanoch, Ph.D. (University of California, Los Angeles)
• Jonathan S. Skinner, Ph.D. (Dartmouth University)

The researchers will address some of the most challenging policy issues facing America today, as well as wide-ranging concerns about the nation’s health and health care system. Their topics include: productivity and technology diffusion in health care; health insurance choices; the politics of Medicare coverage; patient safety and professional responsibility; the use of race and ethnicity in medical treatment; disasters, health care, and the disadvantaged; socioeconomic status and patient and provider communication; health risks of the African-American middle class; drug policy and policy research; prenatal and newborn genetic screening; and adolescent relationships, sexual behavior, and health.

This highly competitive 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. Applications are reviewed by a National Advisory Committee of distinguished experts from fields similar to those of the investigators. Members of the 2005 National Advisory Committee included:

• Paul D. Cleary, Ph.D., Chair (Harvard University)
• Nicholas Christakis, M.D., Ph.D. (Harvard University)
• Susan Dentzer (The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS)
• Judy Feder, Ph.D. (Georgetown University)
• Sherry A. Glied, Ph.D. (Columbia University)
• Clark C. Havighurst, J.D. (Duke University)
• Bruce G. Link, Ph.D. (Columbia University)
• Christina H. Paxson, Ph.D. (Princeton University)
• Mark A. Peterson, Ph.D. (University of California, Los Angeles)
• Mark J. Schlesinger, Ph.D. (Yale University and Rutgers)
• Kevin A. Schulman, M.D., M.B.A. (Duke 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 Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey)

RWJF created the Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research in 1992 to expand society’s understanding of difficult health problems and the complexities of health care financing and delivery in the United States, and to encourage researchers whose cross-cutting and innovative ideas promise to inform and improve policymaking. Since 1992, the Foundation has supported 124 projects involving 156 investigators. “The Investigator Awards program has encouraged innovative approaches to address pressing health and health care issues facing our country, from racial and ethnic disparities in care to public health challenges,” says David Colby, Ph.D., deputy director of Research and Evaluation at RWJF.