New Center for Health and Social Policy launched

A Compass for Policymakers

The direction the nation will take in the areas of health and social policy is one of the most important social and economic issues facing policymakers today. As America continues to change and current policies cease to be effective, the country faces mounting problems in such critical areas as health care, retirement, civil rights, education, and welfare.

In response to these concerns, the LBJ School has established a new center, the Center for Health and Social Policy (CHASP). Funded initially by the School’s Sid Richardson Chair in Public Affairs, CHASP’s mission is to conduct groundbreaking research, educate students and practitioners to become future leaders, and provide a forum for today’s policymakers and scholars to debate pressing policy issues.

This year, under the banner of the newly created center, the LBJ School launched a five-year policy symposia series in partnership with the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and consolidated ongoing work in health and social policy areas.

Big Choices Symposia Series
Called “Big Choices in American Social Policy,” the new LBJ School-LBJ Library symposia series focuses on how key economic and demographic changes occurring in the United States will affect American health and social policy.

The first of these events was held on April 25 and was entitled “Big Choices: The Future of Health Insurance for America’s Families.” The symposium drew scholars and policymakers from around the nation to discuss ways to address the enormous challenges related to health insurance.

According to former U.S. Social Security Commissioner Kenneth S. Apfel (LBJ Class of 1978), who holds the Sid Richardson Chair in Public Affairs at the LBJ School and who helped coordinate the series with the LBJ Library, the symposium was organized because “the country is at a real crossroads with regard to providing health insurance for America’s families.” He added that the time has come for major action on this front.

LBJ Library Director Betty Sue Flowers agreed, saying that organizers wanted “a working dialogue that could actually produce constructive results in relation to one of the big issues of our time.”

Next year’s “Big Choices” symposium will be called “The Future of Medicare: Providing Health Care to America’s Seniors.”

Policy Research Projects
In addition to providing a forum where policymakers can openly debate important issues, CHASP has also organized research projects dealing with health and social policy topics under its umbrella. This year, three of the School’s policy research projects are tackling the topics of the U.S.-Mexico border health workforce, behavioral health services and managed health care services, and education policy.

The policy research project on border workforce issues, directed by Professor David C. Warner, organized a conference that took place at the School on March 28. Policymakers, regulatory authority representatives, educators, and practitioners in the medical, dental, and nursing fields from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border discussed barriers and means of cooperation as well as portability of credentials in the health professions. Among the speakers was Guillermo Soberón Acevedo, the former Mexican Secretary of Health who currently oversees medical school accreditation in Mexico.

The conference included various presentations about existing initiatives in California and Texas that demonstrate how barriers can be overcome. In California, Mexican physicians and dentists who have completed their training in their country will be working in California community health centers with special licenses, and in Texas there are two programs where Mexican nurses are being trained to pass the American nurse licensing exam.

Another policy research project, this one on health services and directed by Professor Pat Wong, worked on an evaluation of NorthSTAR, a behavioral managed care demonstration model introduced in 1999 by the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation in a seven-county area centered around Dallas. The project team studied how mental health and substance abuse services are organized in the Dallas area and learned how the various funding, government, commercial, and nonprofit agencies work together. As part of the evaluation, students visited provider sites, reviewed original documents in the implementation process, conducted interviews with family members and other stakeholders, and organized focus groups.

Meanwhile, a project on education policy directed by Professor Uri Treisman, who is the director of a UT Austin research unit called the Charles A. Dana Center, worked with different components of the Texas Legislature this spring to formulate policy proposals and craft an online resource for policymakers.

As part of their policy research project assignment, students were required to serve internships throughout the legislative session. In addition to being assigned to legislative committees that are tracking such issues as public education, the students developed briefing materials for new legislative aides, attended hearings, and worked on bill analysis.

“For my internship, I am the coordinator for the Texas Student Ambassador Program,” said second-year student Barbara Knaggs. “This program, initiated by the Governor’s Office, selects 40 high school sophomores and juniors, teaches them about a place in the world, and takes them there for an intensive educational experience abroad.”

According to Knaggs, this year’s Texas Student Ambassadors are learning about and traveling to China. Knaggs helped coordinate a conference held in March at the LBJ School that involved the 40 student ambassadors as well as state and federal officials.

Other Projects
This year, CHASP executive committee members are also involved in a number of independent projects. These include:

• “Health Disparities in Later Life”—This project has major funding from the National Institute on Aging, one of the 25 components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is the biomedical research arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Professors Ronald and Jacqueline Angel are conducting the study with researchers from the UT Medical Branch at Galveston and the UT Medical Branch at San Antonio.
• “Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three City Study”—This work is directed by Professor Ronald Angel through a consortium that includes researchers from UT Austin, the Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, Penn State, and Northwestern University. The project is funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and a number of private foundations.
• “Demonstration to Maintain Independence and Employment”—This study is being conducted by Professor Pat Wong to evaluate a proposed Medicaid buy-in program for working adults with disabilities. The project is funded by the federal government and commissioned by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

Executive Committee
The Center for Health and Social Policy is directed by an executive committee that includes former U.S. Social Security Commissioner Kenneth S. Apfel (LBJ Class of 1978), who holds the Sid Richardson Chair in Public Affairs at the LBJ School; David C. Warner, the LBJ School’s Wilbur Cohen Professor of Public Affairs; LBJ School Professors Jacqueline L. Angel and Pat Wong; and UT Austin Sociology Professor Ronald J. Angel. For more information visit the CHASP web site at http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/research/chasp/.

Record Home • Publications • LBJ School
May 5, 2003
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