Jefferson School of Population Health
Research Interest Groups
The Research team has convened several interest groups designed to stimulate new research ideas and to foster sharing of ideas among faculty and staff with shared interests.
Current groups, which generally meet at least monthly, include:
Employer Initiatives
Builds on JSPH's collaboration with the National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH) and the HealthCare21 Business Coalition in Tennessee in offering the College for Value Based Purchasing of Health Benefits (CVBP), a training program for employee benefit managers. The program teaches employers how to use their market power to demand quality and to work with payors and providers to achieve value in health care. CVBP has trained over 300 professionals since its founding in 2004, and program evaluation continues to be extremely positive. The employer research interest group was formed to foster CVBP evaluation and to identify other opportunities for JSPH to evaluate employer-based health and wellness, value-based purchasing, and benefits management initiatives. As a direct result, JSPH is currently supporting the evaluation needs of NBCH's diabetes seed grants program, and continues to seek employer partners for research and evaluation activities.
End of Life
Building on strong backgrounds and interests of several faculty members, this recently established interest group is focused on designing and testing interventions intended to improve quality-of-life and cost-effective resource utilization for people in hospice care, long term care settings, and otherwise nearing the end of life.
Oncology Outcomes
The group seeks to identify opportunities through research to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of care for people with cancer. Areas of interest include: the cancer patient's needs from and perceptions of care; improving access to cancer screening and prevention services; measuring and improving care outcomes; and assessing costs of screening and treatment.
Global Climate Change and Health
Despite increased recognition that the global climate is changing, limited attention has been paid to implications for population health. This interest group is reviewing the existing literature in an attempt to identify new research opportunities. One of the group's first initiatives was pilot testing of a physician questionnaire seeking to identify the extent to which physicians are aware of global climate change and the theoretical and empirical evidence regarding health impact. The group also is exploring potential data sources and research designs for producing further evidence regarding the links between climate and adverse health outcomes.
