Health Policy Update: April 17, 2025

In an effort to help our Funding Partners better understand the changing health policy landscape in the new administration and Congress, Grantmakers In Health (GIH) is expanding the GIH Health Policy Update newsletter to three issues per month. Working in collaboration with Leavitt Partners, a leading health care policy consultancy, we are adding new installments of the newsletter on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, while we will continue to partner with Trust for America’s Health on the installment released on the second Wednesday of the month.

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Strengthening the Performance and Effectiveness of the Public Health System

The public health system is the backbone of our nation’s health, but the existing public health infrastructure is inadequate to address the health challenges currently facing this country. Strengthening the Performance and Effectiveness of the Public Health System shares how health funders can improve the functionality of the public health system and develop capabilities, services, and competencies that enhance public health practice.

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Connecting the Dots: Developing a Holistic Picture of Children’s Health

Health care services are one of many supports and resources needed to support healthy children. In recognition of the need to take a more comprehensive approach to child health, health funders are being challenged to work outside traditional purviews.

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Pediatric Medical Homes: The What and Why of It All

The “medical home” encompasses the places, people, and processes involved in providing comprehensive primary care services. Medical homes replace episodic patient care with a holistic approach fostering ongoing physician-patient relationships, systematic care coordination, and addressing the “whole person.” They also must deliver physician-directed patient care that is accessible, family-centered, comprehensive, continuous, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective.

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Social Policy Is Health Policy

Decades of research and practical experience in the United States and other countries have shown that a number of economic and social factors – education, income, occupation, wealth, housing, neighborhood environment, race and ethnicity – have a powerful influence on health. This link between social position and health status is predictable, persistent, problematic, and – we hope – preventable.

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Health Information Technology: Increasing Quality and Access within Safety Net Providers

Health foundations are uniquely positioned to help safety net providers reach their full health information technology potential, and by providing various means of support, foundations can help to bridge competitive tensions that often derail cooperation.

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Creating Public Will to End Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities

Each year disparities in health status and health care take a toll on members of racial and ethnic minority groups that translates into preventable illness and death. If the United States eliminated the black-white mortality gap alone, it has been estimated that as many as 84,000 deaths could be prevented annually.

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Infant Mortality: Racial and Regional Disparities

Infant mortality is an important measure of maternal and child health status, as well as a broader indicator of a society’s health and well-being. In the United States infant mortality rates have held stubbornly at about 7 percent for the last 10 years. This statistic, however, masks significant racial and regional disparities.

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