Father working from home while daughters homeschool
Father working from home while daughters homeschool

We value community wisdom and institutional knowledge, and our commitment to continuous learning allows us to listen and connect insights to chart a course to health equity—faster and together. Explore news, research, policy updates and thought leadership from experts within and outside RWJF, below.

Trending Topics

The landscape affecting the barriers to health equity is constantly shifting. Stay up to date as RWJF experts share their perspectives on timely news affecting our collective ability to get to a future where health equity is a reality.

Strengthening Medicaid should remain a national imperative

Perspective from Vice President of Policy Avenel Joseph
Read the op-ed in Route Fifty

The Promise and Peril of Being Transgender in America

Perspective from RWJF Executive Vice President Julie Morita and Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, National Center for Transgender Equality
Read their op-ed in U.S. News

Work requirements are a policy failure: Why are they still an option?

Perspective from Katherine Hempstead, Senior Policy Adviser
Read her op-ed in The Hill

Expert Insights

Sharing solutions and stories from communities across America, along with critical perspectives and the best available data and evidence that can inform progress toward a future where health is no longer a privilege, but a right.

Blog Post
People marching against hospital segragation.

Three Lessons for Advancing Equity in Challenging Times

We must preserve the progress those before us achieved and stand firm in our belief that health should not be a privilege for some, but a right for all.

5-min read

Healthcare Coverage and Access Policy and Law Structural Racism
Blog Post
Reproductive justice illustration.

Guaranteeing Reproductive Justice for All

The vision of the Black women who founded the reproductive justice movement 31 years ago goes beyond policy—it calls for a cultural shift toward valuing the humanity of Black people.

6-min read

Child and Family Wellbeing Structural Racism
Blog Post
A father and son sit next to drum.

How a Community is Turning Hope into Action to Reclaim Their Future

Residents transform their neighborhood as they root out structural racism and advance health equity.

5-min read

Public and Community Health Structural Racism
Full Library

Our Research

We work to expand our nation's evidence base on what can help us achieve health equity faster and together. We recognize that equitable data collection and analysis is necessary to dismantle barriers to health equity.

Funding Opportunity

Research to Advance Racial and Indigenous Health Equity

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Brief
Child First is an evidence-based model that uses home visits and a network of community services to prevent the devastating effects of early childhood adversity. The model aims to identify children and families with serious challenges (at the earliest possible time) and connect them to well-integrated community-based resources to help them deal with the source of the stress directly: from basic needs like food and housing to issues like depression or intimate partner violence. The program, which began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, is unique among home-visiting models because it features a skilled mental health specialist as a leading part of the team. Stamford, CT

Tax Cut Extension with Medicaid and SNAP Spending Reductions

The net benefits of these combined policies would be concentrated among families with higher incomes, while the lowest-income families would suffer significant losses in income.

1-min read

Healthcare Coverage and Access Policy and Law Nutrition
Brief
Doctor and nurse at nurse at clinic nurse station.

Lowering Federal Matching Commitments to Medicaid

Researchers conclude that lowering federal matching to Medicaid would place tremendous fiscal strain on states and likely result in healthcare coverage losses.

1-min read

Healthcare Coverage and Access Policy and Law
Brief
Work requirements graphic.

Work Requirements Threaten Health and Increase Costs

Decades of research show that work requirements do not move people off assistance and into self-sufficiency; instead they drive people and families—already struggling to make ends meet—deeper into poverty.

2-min read

Healthcare Coverage and Access Policy and Law
Full Library

Advocacy & Policy

We are committed to advancing the policies, practices, and systems changes that can dismantle structural barriers to wellbeing, especially racism. We take the long view and focus on efforts that have a lasting impact on systemic, generational change.

Brief
Child First is an evidence-based model that uses home visits and a network of community services to prevent the devastating effects of early childhood adversity. The model aims to identify children and families with serious challenges (at the earliest possible time) and connect them to well-integrated community-based resources to help them deal with the source of the stress directly: from basic needs like food and housing to issues like depression or intimate partner violence. The program, which began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, is unique among home-visiting models because it features a skilled mental health specialist as a leading part of the team. Stamford, CT

Tax Cut Extension with Medicaid and SNAP Spending Reductions

The net benefits of these combined policies would be concentrated among families with higher incomes, while the lowest-income families would suffer significant losses in income.

1-min read

Healthcare Coverage and Access Policy and Law Nutrition
Brief
Doctor and nurse at nurse at clinic nurse station.

Lowering Federal Matching Commitments to Medicaid

Researchers conclude that lowering federal matching to Medicaid would place tremendous fiscal strain on states and likely result in healthcare coverage losses.

1-min read

Healthcare Coverage and Access Policy and Law
Brief
Work requirements graphic.

Work Requirements Threaten Health and Increase Costs

Decades of research show that work requirements do not move people off assistance and into self-sufficiency; instead they drive people and families—already struggling to make ends meet—deeper into poverty.

2-min read

Healthcare Coverage and Access Policy and Law
Full Library