Aligning Systems for Health: Health Care + Public Health + Social Services, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is pleased to announce the recipients of more than $2.4 million in research awards.
The Georgia Health Policy Center leads Aligning Systems for Health, which focuses on learning about effective ways to align health care, public health, and social services to better meet the goals and needs of the people and communities they serve.
The center is responsible for coordinating these seven research awards and integrating the learnings with the other components of the project. Over the next two years, Aligning Systems for Health is pleased to work with its new research partners at the Public Health Institute; Texas Health Institute; Trenton Health Team; University of Louisville; University of South Carolina, Columbia; University of Washington, Seattle; and West Side United (in partnership with Rush Medical Center).
“The goal of this research is to explore, test, and refine the Cross-Sector Alignment Theory of Change in diverse contexts,” says Karen Minyard, Ph.D., principal investigator of Aligning Systems for Health. “Ultimately, what we learn with our research partners across the country, will help strengthen the evidence base to support on-the-ground efforts by better understanding the conditions that foster successful cross-sector alignment, and ultimately, improve better health outcomes for all.”
Successfully addressing the complex challenges that affect community health — such as COVID-19, maternal and infant mortality, food and housing insecurity, and the opioid epidemic —requires health care, public health, and social services to work together. But cross-sector alignment is more than collaborative planning or a single joint project. It requires fundamentally new ways of thinking and working together across sectors to build healthier and more equitable communities.
“We see that health care, public health and social service organizations all have important, interdependent roles to meet the physical, social, and emotional needs of the people and communities they serve,” says Hilary Heishman, senior program officer at RWJF. “However, there is no playbook on how to do this. We are excited to be working with GHPC and these new research grantees in order to gain a better understanding of how best to make cross-sector alignment work and endure.”
These seven awards are in addition to a portfolio of rapid-cycle research and evaluation awards grants, totaling $412,828, that Aligning Systems for Health made in the fall of 2019.
Learn more about each of the seven grantees under Research Awards.