CHRT announces its inaugural class of Health Policy Fellows. CHRT’s new health policy fellowship program at the University of Michigan focuses on building connections between health services researchers and policymakers for more effective, evidence-based health policy decisions. The fellowship, thought to be the first of its kind in the nation, brings together five health science researchers from the University of Michigan and five Lansing policymakers to work on joint projects and learn from each other. The fellowship includes interactive seminars as well as hands-on experience.

“Researchers across the University of Michigan are engaged in significant work that can and should inform policy,” said CHRT’s founding executive director Marianne Udow-Phillips. “Similarly, policymakers can help faculty understand how the policy process works so that research can be better targeted to have a meaningful impact. In order to accomplish those goals, researchers and policymakers need open channels of communication and a shared language. This fellowship is designed to build a common knowledge-base for researchers and policymakers and help them generate ideas for working more closely together.”

In the inaugural year of the fellowship, CHRT, the Ann Arbor Department of Veterans Affairs Center for Clinical Management Research, and the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation co-sponsor a symposium as a companion event. The symposium is designed to help participants understand the barriers and solutions to increasing the impact of health services research on policy and practice. The symposium includes panels of funders, researchers, and policymakers, including then Michigan Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer. A paper on this symposium is authored by Eve A Kerr, Melissa Riba, and Marianne Udow-Phillips and published in the Journal of Health Sciences Research.