Center for Health Policy Development

The Center for Health Policy Development is focused on ensuring that the social determinants of health are at the core of all health policy.

With the steady and unending rise of healthcare costs locally and nationally, the Center for Health Policy Development aims to ensure policies and practices are enacted to foster healthy living across the Garden State, especially in urban areas. The Center seeks to inform health policies in New Jersey as it collaborates with policymakers on the local, state and federal levels, and with stakeholders including healthcare providers, advocates, insurers, employers, consumers and more. With the belief that health is the underpinning of a thriving society, the Center strives to make public health a core part of decision makers’ conversations related to economic development, jobs, education and community empowerment.

The Center was created shortly after the Watson Institute launched, to guide mayors on issues and proposed legislation related to public health needs. The Center was a pioneer in leading the research that led to facilitating the sharing of electronic medical records among providers, a problem more acute for vulnerable populations such as the uninsured and homeless who may receive uncoordinated care at multiple facilities. The Center also managed critical projects in urban areas such as an environmental scan of several cities at high risk of childhood obesity to explore causes, standards of care, and appropriate messaging to residents.

By conducting research on black maternal and infant mortality, the Center spotlights the problem in New Jersey and helps shape legislation to reduce deaths. The Center has also engaged with First Lady Tammy Murphy’s Nurture NJ awareness campaign on this challenge.

The perils of lead in city drinking water and homes is another area of focus as the Center engages with community partners to assess the risks, and recommend policies and practices to ameliorate the dangers. The Center also forecasts health trends and their impact on Garden State citizens, such as examining the Affordable Care Act and how it could affect urban centers. 

The Center has evolved from The Healthcare Information Networks and Technologies (HINT) initiative that operated under the Institute as a funded project of the State Legislature. Through this process, the University collaboratively determined ways to reduce healthcare costs in New Jersey and provided applied research and assistance for HINT/HIPAA projects and law implementation efforts.

The Center partners with other agencies to address public health issues such as healthy food access and childhood obesity and has collaboratively made efforts to address substance abuse and prevention in light of the current opioid epidemic. The Center has also aided in efforts to increase health insurance enrollment by creating partnerships with local government officials and certified enrollment counselors under the Affordable Care Act, and advised on major state legislation to address the state’s maternal and infant mortality crisis and lead prevention and remediation.