News News releases SPH news School’s NC Institute for Public Health awarded grant to examine public health agency accreditation 
| School’s NC Institute for Public Health awarded grant to examine public health agency accreditation |
| December 07, 2009 | |
|
The UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health's North Carolina Institute for Public Health (NCIPH) has been awarded a $150,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine laws and policies supporting public health agency accreditation.  Gene Matthews, JD The Institute was one of 15 recipients, selected from a field of 235 applicants, of grants from the Foundation's newly established Public Health Law Research program, which aims to build evidence for and strengthen use of effective regulatory, legal and policy tools to improve public health. To advance the understanding and use of public health law, the Foundation program supports legal analysis and research to learn about the health impacts of specific laws within different communities and settings. Effective Dec. 1, the grant enables NCIPH to assess accreditation laws, policies and regulations in 20 states that have made progress toward accrediting state or local health departments. The Institute also will conduct case studies of six of those states to determine how and why they chose a particular legal structure for accreditation. The case studies will use public health system and services research (PHSSR) to explore the impact of legal structures on accreditation capacity, functions and outputs. "It is quite an honor to be one of the first handful of organizations selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to explore this new field of public health law research," Matthews said. "We are indebted to the leadership of North Carolina in being the first state to enact a specific law in 2005 to implement a public health department accreditation program that is now setting an example for other states." The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans. The Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. # # # For more information, contact Gene Matthews, (919) 966-9924 or matthewsphlaw@aol.com. |
|
| Last updated December 09, 2009 |