Grants for Addressing the Harms of Financialization in Healthcare

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supports actionable research that helps counter the harms of financialization in the healthcare system.

Donor Name: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)

State: All States

County: All Counties

Type of Grant: Grant

Deadline: 02/12/2024

Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $500,000

Grant Duration: 2 Years

Details:

The Foundation seeks proposals for research projects that bolster existing or emerging advocacy campaigns and organizing efforts; build on opportunities afforded by the political and social landscape; and produce timely and useful information for use by advocates, community organizers, policymakers, and other decisionmakers. They are especially interested in projects that explore the mutually reinforcing issues of financialization and structural racism in the U.S. healthcare system; that use racial justice as an entry point and/or lens; and community-engaged work that fosters new partnerships and allies among researchers and advocates.

Proposed projects should fall into one of the three priority topic areas described below, with the understanding that topic areas are not mutually exclusive and will likely overlap.

• Policy and Systems: Research to help government, communities, organizations, and coalitions advance stronger government rules, enforcement, and capacities to restrain the harms of financialization in healthcare.
  • Lack of information to and from government about the effects of financialization can mask the severity of the problem, hamper the ability of advocates and others to effectively inform policymakers about potential solutions, and impede the ability of policymakers/government infrastructure to tackle financialization in healthcare. Research in this area may address, but is not limited to, any of the following:
    • generate qualitative and quantitative evidence and information for decisionmakers; 
    • fill gaps in data, knowledge, and analysis that lawmakers, regulators, patients, healthcare workers, advocates, and community leaders need for advocacy, enforcement, activism, and policymaking; 
    • provide information and knowledge that will support the actual implementation of existing laws and regulations, including specifics on the resources needed for monitoring and enforcement;
    • help shape proactive regulatory action (through analysis of reform issues and opportunities) that reduces incentives, closes loopholes, and sets limits for the financial sector in controlling healthcare delivery; 
    • identify information resources and a dissemination strategy for reaching state and federal agencies, potential allies, and affected communities; 
    • generate evidence and policies to protect whistleblowers who can sound the alarm about the harms of the financialized healthcare system.
• Narratives and Storytelling: Research to make the issue more accessible by centering human stories and using narratives.
  • Projects in this area could employ ethnographic methods, community interviews and/or storytelling to connect the current challenges Americans face in the healthcare system to their roots in financialization and structural racism. Stories that use qualitative and quantitative information can be an essential tool for engaging everyone from policymakers to healthcare workers to affected communities by humanizing the issue. Stories can help those who are engaged in related work see value in examining financialization and making connections with new partners. These projects can touch on vital foundational questions, such as: 
    • What does it mean for healthcare to operate under and rely on a financialized business model? 
    • What does it mean to have financialization shape the healthcare workforce? enter primary care? enter public programs? 
    • How does financialization benefit or harm communities of color? 
    • What happens to lives and communities impacted by a financialized healthcare system? 
    • How can positive counter-narratives help build a realistic vision of an alternative to the financialized health system?
• Financialization and Structural Racism: Strengthen the evidence base on how financialization may exploit and sustain structural racism in healthcare.
  • This research area can generate more sources of evidence and elevate stories that bolster power-building and advocacy efforts addressing how financialization plays out in the healthcare system–through the lens of structural racism. Projects in this area can help to: 
    • uncover and elevate stories of the lived experience of BIPOC communities in the financialized healthcare system and strengthen policy prescriptions for change; 
    • fill research/data gaps on the impact of financialization on BIPOC communities; 
    • and/or track the origins of health disparities to their roots in financialization.

Funding Information

• Number of Awards: The program will distribute up to $1.2 million in funding.
• Amount of Award: Each award will be between $100,000 and $300,000. Applicants should request the amount of funding they will need to complete the proposed research project.
• Award Duration: Grants will be awarded for projects that are 12 to 18 months in duration.
• Use of Funds: Award funds should cover the actual costs of the project including personnel and other direct costs. If the grantee is a public charity, grant funds may also be used to cover indirect costs to support the applicant organization’s general operations. In keeping with RWJF policy, funds may not be used to support clinical trials of unapproved drugs or devices, to construct or renovate facilities, and for lobbying or political activities. 

Types of Research Projects 

Funded projects may generate data, resources, and/or storytelling needed to help regulators and/or advocates craft solutions; improve the systems and mechanisms that can restrain financialization; enforce laws; and imagine an alternative vision and possibility for the future. Projects can include mapping or rankings of current government activities, and similar resources for spreading best practices. Projects can include assessment of practical decisions, including staffing and budget implications needed for the government to implement and enforce certain policies. A variety of research designs and analyses, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research, and linkages of existing data sources, can be used to address key research questions. Nontraditional approaches are welcome. Projects can also support coalition and partnership development that collaborate in using data and information (“research”) to inform and support advocacy, strategies, and action. They encourage a flexible definition of “research” for purposes of these grants, which may fund the collection and/or dissemination of information that supports action.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicant organizations must be based in the United States or its territories.
• Awards will be made to organizations, not to individuals.
• Government agencies are not eligible to apply as lead applicant but are encouraged to participate as key partners, where appropriate. Applicants can include but are not limited to community-based, state, and national advocacy organizations or coalitions; policy think tanks; and professional or workforce organizations representing the medical workforce. The Foundation may require additional documentation to confirm that eligibility requirements have been met.
• The Foundation supports and seek to partner with organizations, leaders, and researchers with a deep commitment to health inequities and lived experiences of health injustice, and most impacted by systems of oppression such as racism, sexism, and ableism.
• The Foundation encourages partnership projects led by communities most impacted by structural racism and other systems of oppression, interdisciplinary research teams, partnerships spanning state and community-level advocacy/organizing and research and entities that have not applied or been awarded a grant from RWJF.
• The Foundation encourages applicant organizations that are led by or that reflect the leadership of Black or African American; American Indian, Alaska Native, or Indigenous; Hispanic, Latinx/e, or Latin American; Middle Eastern or North African; Asian or Asian American; and/or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander communities and those from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), Alaska Native-Serving Institutions, Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs).

For more information, visit RWJF.