Meharry Selected as Site of Center for Health Policy on Nashville Medical News

Meharry Selected as Site of Center for Health Policy

By: SHARON H. FITZGERALD

Meharry President Dr. Wayne J. Riley (left) and RWJF Senior Vice President John R. Lumpkin announced the Robert Wood Johnson Center for Health Policy at an event in Nashville.

Recognizing that health policy decisions are better when decision-makers themselves reflect the diversity of the populations affected, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy is in the organizational stages on the campus of Nashville's Meharry Medical College.

"In a global sense, it validates in my mind the fact that Meharry Medical College, founded in 1876, continues to be a national treasure," President Wayne J. Riley, MD, said. In March, the RWJF announced that Meharry would receive a $9 million check –– the college's largest single endowment donation ever –– to establish the center and an additional $9 million incrementally to keep it running for five years, "with the full expectation that the foundation won't walk away in year six, but will continue to fund it in years six through 10 and beyond," Riley said.

The aim of the center is two-fold: to introduce diversity into national health policy discussions and to train future African American health policy experts. The Meharry center will be modeled after a similar one, also funded by the RWJF, at the University of New Mexico to reach out to America's ever-growing Hispanic population.

"The fact that the nation's demographics are changing means that we need to broaden the expert pool to deal with the very difficult problems of the future of Medicare, Medicaid, the uninsured and prescription drug benefits –– the meat-and-potatoes, health policy problems that we deal with as a nation," Riley said.

An existing building on the Meharry campus will be renovated to house the new center, and advertisements are luring candidates to the job of executive director. In its role as a think tank, the center will host national conferences and scholars in residence, while also publishing white papers, position papers and analyses of public policy.

"We will attract some of the nation's foremost health policy economists and health policy experts to Meharry to work and to teach and to lecture," Riley said. "We'll do the typical things that a think tank does, which are very, very important, but in addition, we'll do it in a way that will expand those types of academic offerings to a more diverse population."

The second component is the formal training of more African Americans at the doctoral level in health-related economics, sociology and political science, which Riley described as "the foundation fields" of nonclinical, health policy work. That's where Vanderbilt University comes into the picture. While Meharry will administer the foundation monies, it has contracted with the Vanderbilt College of Arts and Sciences to teach the PhD students recruited by Meharry. Vanderbilt will add dedicated faculty members for the new doctoral offerings. Riley called the collaboration "a natural outgrowth" of the 10-year partnership Vanderbilt and Meharry have enjoyed to educate future physicians. "It's a win-win for both institutions," he said.

Additionally, a health policy certificate program on the Meharry campus will be available, requiring an additional 15-to-18 hours of study.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and healthcare of all Americans. Based in Princeton, N.J., the foundation was established by Johnson & Johnson founder Robert Wood Johnson II. When he died in 1968, he left nearly all his fortune to the foundation.