Center for Health Care and Policy Research (CHCPR)
The Center's mission is to create and disseminate new scientific knowledge that will help private and public decision-makers to develop cost-effective services and programs that improve people's health.
Featured Research: The Community Preparedness Research Project
The Community Preparedness Research Project is headed by Dr. David McBride. It is funded through a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research Program, which supports researchers whose crosscutting and innovative ideas promise to contribute meaningfully to improving health and health care policy. The project focus has been investigating the ethnography and policy outcomes of disasters that have occurred in disadvantaged city communities throughout the nation. These disasters include severe weather events such as floods and hurricanes, disease epidemics, industrial accidents, terrorist attacks, and other emergencies that can strike our schools, hospitals, and other neighborhood institutions. The project is developing case-studies of disaster events and community preparedness in cities such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Camden, and Chester (Pa.). It is also conducting a survey of residents and professionals in these and other cities relating to disaster apprehension, preparedness, and community capacity building.
As part of the research and survey process, the project has held community forums. These forums, called Local Communities--National Emergencies, are designed to obtain input from target communities on recent or possible disasters involving their institutions and city sections. These mini-conferences are also a means for the Project to provide local professionals with exposure to new research developments in the field of disaster preparedness and emergency preparedness. These professionals include educators, health and public safety personnel, and community organization leaders. These forum topics cover recent urban disasters; public health and mental health aspects of disasters and recovery in children, youth, and other vulnerable populations; the different roles of government agencies in assisting with emergency and recovery services; and using preparedness agencies and their outreach resources to strengthen local emergency strategies of neighborhood schools, health facilities, and other institutions.