The Growing Impact of the Health Policy Committee

Joanna Buscemi, Ph.D., Health Policy Committee (HPC) Chair

“Extending our Reach”

The goal of the HPC is to identify and create opportunities for health policy briefs, to review and approve brief drafts for review/approval by the Executive Committee, and to disseminate the briefs widely in collaboration with partner organizations.

Newly Released Health Policy Briefs

Since the 2017 Annual Meeting in San Diego, the HPC has released two new briefs. The first addresses policies to reduce smoking disparities for gender and sexual minorities and involved several partnering organizations such as The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, LGBT Health Link, the National LGBT Cancer Network, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, The American Academy of Nursing, Northwestern’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing, Pride Action Tank, and Howard Brown Health. The other brief calls for increased funding for the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. The Consortium of Social Science Associations co-sponsored this brief, and the American Psychological Association, the Society for Health Psychology, the American Anthropological Association, the American Association of Geographers, and the American Sociological Association endorsed our statement.

Upcoming Health Policy Briefs

The HPC is currently working on several health policy briefs in the following areas:

• Rural health
• Oral cancer prevention
• Prostate cancer screening
• Increasing fruit/vegetable production allocations in the reauthorization of the Farm Bill
• Push back school start times
• Opioid misuse prevention
• Support of safety net programs for at risk youth

Authorship teams are currently revising their drafts for HPC feedback. Each team is engaging early career and senior members, relevant Special Interest Groups, and partner organizations. If you have expertise in these areas and would like to contribute, please contact the HPC Chair, Joanna Buscemi, at jbuscem2@depaul.edu.

Stay Tuned for Health Policy Webinars

The Health Policy Council, chaired by Marian Fitzgibbon, in collaboration with the HPC, is please to announce the start of our health policy webinar series. Our first webinar will occur on September 29th at 2pm EST and is entitled “How to Increase Research Impact Through Developing and Disseminating Health Policy Briefs: a Guide for SBM Members.” Joanna Buscemi will lead this webinar and Marian Fitzgibbon and Sara Knight will moderate. Moving forward, we will use the webinar platform as another way of disseminating our briefs. We plan to have first authors present the content of the brief, and then have a more senior member serve as a discussant.

The Board’s Visit to Capitol Hill

The Board will travel to Capitol Hill this November to meet with legislative aides to discuss issues that are central to SBM’s mission. We will take our health policy briefs with us to share with the Staffers!

Thank you to our current members!

Joanna Buscemi, PhD (Chair)
Akilah J. Dulin Keita, PhD
Edwin B. Fisher, PhD
Marian L. Fitzgibbon, PhD
Amanda Blok, PhD, MSN, PHCNS-BC
Laura L. Hayman, RN, PhD, FAAN
Lisa M. Quintiliani, PhD, RD
Kenneth Tercyak, PhD
Dawn K. Wilson, PhD