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's focus is on improving community and policy responses to public health emergencies that affect disadvantaged communities. These emergencies include severe weather events, industrial accidents and pollution, floods and hurricanes, disease epidemics, bioterrorism, and other mass casualty threats and events.
The programs of the CHPP foster research and outreach educational programs that can assist professionals at schools, health facilities, and other neighborhood institutions. These programs strengthen local planning for public health emergencies as well as initiatives to reduce long-term conditions creating these community health risks. Currently the Project research is developing case-studies of public health emergencies and community preparedness in cities such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Camden, and Chester (Pa.). The study of these locales include epidemiological and environmental health, ethnographic, public health, and policy analysis. These local surveys are the basis for a national study that will be shared with the larger public health academic and practitioner community.
The CHPP also has held community forums. These mini-conferences, titled Local Communities--National Emergencies, are designed to obtain input from target communities on recent or possible emergencies involving their institutions and city sections. The forums have also been a means for the Project to provide local professionals with exposure to the newest, university-based research on the changing face of public health emergencies and natural disasters. Attendees include educators, municipal health and public safety personnel, community organization leaders, and parent group leaders. Forum topics cover recent urban mass emergencies; 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 linking with preparedness agencies and their outreach resources to strengthen local emergency strategies.
Finally, the CHPP plans to provide future surveys and community-based programs focusing on new challenges for improving community health. These challenges include preparing locally for global climate change, and preventing the continuing destruction of healthy environments, cultural heritage sites, and a sense of security in local communities.