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Evans School of Public Policy & Governance

Author: walw

Overcoming Barriers to Access Health Care The Challenges Facing Minorities and Immigrants in Washington State

 

Washington state’s BIPOC and immigrant communities face worse health outcomes and a lower standard of care compared to their white counterparts. Barriers to access, both at the individual and system levels, are the primary drivers for inadequate care and unmet needs. As a purchaser and regulator, Washington State and its agencies can exercise their authority to finance, implement, and oversee interventions to help reduce and/or eliminate systemic barriers that disproportionately affect minority and immigrant households.

In this report, Layla G. Booshehri (Associate Director of Center for Health Innovation and Policy Science) and Jerome Dugan (Faculty in Health Systems and Population Health & Adjunct Faculty at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance) examine what Washington State can do to reduce disparities in health care access experienced by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and immigrant communities.

 

Read the Report

 

Sharing Power: The Landscape of Participatory Practices & Grantmaking Among Large U.S. Foundations

August 25, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic and fights for racial justice highlighted questions about whether mission-driven organizations can effectively deliver on their social impact goals without engaging with the communities that they seek to impact. Philanthropic foundations, in particular, have come under scrutiny amidst recent and growing concerns about their undemocratic nature and shrouded grant-making processes.

Philanthropic foundations in the United States hold significant power in the policy landscape, as they can both define societal challenges and determine the manner in which those challenges are addressed. The work of foundations is tax subsidized, but they are held to few standards of accountability, leading to increasing calls for foundations to shift their power to affected communities, to democratize decision-making through greater stakeholder participation, and to be more accountable to those whose lives they affect.

As part of the University of Washington Philanthropy Project, Evans School researchers Kelly Husted, Emily Finchum-Mason, and David Suárez sought to understand how large philanthropic foundations – with substantial assets and power – engage the people they serve in their governance and grant-making policies and practices. They launched a survey of the 500 largest private and community foundations in the United States between May and December 2020 to answer this question. These are their key findings:

  1. Many foundations solicited and incorporated feedback from grantees, community-based organizations, beneficiaries, and the public directly into decisions regarding governance and grant-making, but true decision-making power was rarely given to these stakeholders.
  2. The vast majority of foundations are using stakeholder participation as a way to increase their innovativeness and effectiveness rather than to share power, despite the fact that rhetoric surrounding these practices is focused on breaking down power silos.
  3. For the largest foundations in this country, the primary impediment to stakeholder participation was a perceived lack of time and capacity to implement, despite the sheer volume of assets that these foundations wield.

By learning more about grantmaking practices that are currently in place, the motivations for using these approaches, and the key challenges to incorporating stakeholder participation, researchers hope to lower the barriers that some foundations may face in making stakeholder participation an integral part of their governance and grant-making.

Greater accountability from philanthropic foundations represents an important step to a more equitable future. When large, powerful foundations listen to those they aim to benefit, they can more effectively direct their giving in ways that align with community needs.

Read the Full Report

 

About the UW Philanthropy Project

The UW Philanthropy Project is a multiyear research program seeking to understand the many important roles that philanthropic foundations play in American society.

Alison Cullen to Chair EPA Science Advisory Board

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael S. Regan has announced his selections for membership of the Science Advisory Board (SAB), including Alison Cullen, Daniel J. Evans Endowed Professor of Environmental Policy, as its chair.

The Science Advisory Board provides scientific advice to the EPA Administrator, including reviewing the quality and relevance of the information being used to propose regulations and reviewing agency programs. The committee will be comprised of 22 women and 25 men, including 16 people of color, making it the most diverse SAB since the committee was established. The EPA Administrator’s selections represent a cross-section of scientific disciplines and experience needed to provide advice to EPA leadership to help advance the agency’s mission.

“This highly qualified, diverse group of experts will ensure that EPA is receiving sound science-based advice to inform our work to protect people and the environment from pollution,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “We worked expeditiously and deliberately to finalize the new Science Advisory Board, and now we can move forward knowing EPA’s work is guided by the most credible, independent expertise.”

For more information, and to see the full list of appointees, view the full press release from the EPA.

Evaluating Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Policies Potential for Violence Prevention

Fact Sheet Outlines Health and Safety Implications of EITCs

The federal earned income tax credit (EITC), the largest cash transfer program for low-earning workers in the United States, is an economic policy intended to reduce poverty. Each year, the EITC program provides earning subsidies in the form of tax credits to certain workers based on their pretax earnings, marital status, and number of children.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers with the University of Washington Department of Epidemiology and Evans School of Public Policy and Governance investigated the EITC program an its affects on the rates of multiple types of violence, including child maltreatment, suicide, and intimate partner violence. It is plausible that a tax credit for low-income families could affect violence by improving family income and economic security, which could then lead to less stress, material hardship, and exposure to neighborhood violence.

The results of this investigation are summarized in the EITC & Violence Prevention Fact Sheet.

Researchers find that a 10 percentage-point increase in the generosity of state EITC benefits was associated with:

  • a 9% decline in child neglect
  • a 5% decline in child maltreatment
  • a 4% decline in suicide attempts
  • a 1% decline in suicide deaths

(all per year)

Researchers did not find an association between EITCs and intimate partner violence, but they note some restrictions that make it difficult for victims of IPV to receive the EITC.

These findings have policy relevance right now because there are similar programs being discussed and expanded.  At the federal level, the stimulus package passed in February included an expansion of the child tax credit.  Like the EITC, that credit provides income support to low- and middle-income families.  The expansion was temporary but the Biden budget just released includes funding to make it permanent. At the state level, Washington finally funded our own EITC, the Working Families Tax Credit, after not being operational for many years.  There are other states that do not have an EITC or have an EITC program that does not benefit low-income families at the levels it could.

Through this investigation, researchers aimed to broaden our scientific understanding of the benefits of providing income support to low-income families, and hope that it will influence state and federal policymakers to think about the potential for providing income support.

This fact sheet was developed by Ali Rowhani-Rahbar (PI), Heather Hill, Steve Mooney, Frederick Rivara, Caitlin Moe, Nicole Kovski, Erin Morgan, and Kim Dalve. Funding for this research was provided by Cooperative Agreement Award U01CE002945 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Read more at the UW Department of Epidemiology.

Sheila Edwards Lange (MPA ’00) Selected as Chancellor of UW Tacoma

University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce and Provost Mark A. Richards announced the selection of Sheila Edwards Lange, president of Seattle Central College, as chancellor of the University of Washington Tacoma. Her appointment, pending approval by the UW Board of Regents, is set to begin September 16, 2021.

Edwards Lange has many years of experience in higher education and she is well known throughout the UW, having served as the vice president for Minority Affairs and Diversity from 2007 to 2015. As president of Seattle Central College, Edwards Lange leads all college operations, including instruction, student services, fiscal resources, human resources, facilities and community relations. She works closely and collaboratively with leadership across the Seattle College District to ensure students receive high quality and responsive education and services.

“I was attracted to UW Tacoma’s urban-serving mission, commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, and its stellar academic programs. That unique combination has enabled UW Tacoma to be an active partner in economic development and prosperity in the South Sound,” Edwards Lange said. “I am excited about being part of this work and look forward to leading the institution at this critical time in its history.”

Edwards Lange earned her doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies, as well as her master’s in public administration – from the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance in 2000 – and her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine. She began her career at Western Washington University, before taking on leadership roles at Seattle Community Colleges. While earning her doctorate at the UW, she developed research and teaching interests in higher education policy, diversity in higher education, assessment and program evaluation, and underrepresented student access STEM fields. She taught a graduate level course on race and public policy for several years in the UW Evans School.

Read more.