Thursday, April 19, 2018
April 19, 2018 — The Center for Advancing Health Policy and Practice (CAHPP) has joined with and is now known as the Center for Innovation in Social Work & Health (CISWH or Center) at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW). As CISWH, the core team will continue its focus on addressing the social determinants of health at the intersection of social work and public health; promote community collaboration, health equity and social justice; foster partnerships with multiple disciplines and sectors to address inequities that impact the care of vulnerable populations; and prioritize outcomes-oriented research to advance health policy and practice.
The Center for Innovation in Social Work & Health, housed within the BUSSW, is a trans-disciplinary team of educators, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and students dedicated to demonstrating the value of social work in improving health equity and population health, and to promoting social work leadership in achieving these outcomes. The mission of the Center is to expand the impact of social work in health, public health, and global health in order to reduce health costs, improve outcomes and the patient experience, and to promote population health and health equity nationally and globally.
CISWH will draw on the strengths of the CAHPP staff’s expertise in research, evaluation, policy analysis, project implementation, training, and technical assistance. For 25 years, CAHPP has partnered with consumers, researchers, private and public agencies, academic institutions, community-based organizations, health care providers, and local, state, and federal policy makers to design and implement programs that have meaningful, lasting impacts. The CAHPP team has produced and disseminated hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, manuals, and other products related to HIV care, cultural issues in care delivery, homelessness, challenges of substance use and mental health, health care policy, and financing of care for children with special health care needs.
The transition to a single organization will be led by Sara S. Bachman, Ph.D., Paul Farmer professor at the BUSSW and research professor of Health Law Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health. Bachman is director of the CISWH and served as director of CAHPP since 2013. CAHPP’s transition to CISWH will not impact the scope, effort or budget of the work on any current projects. The change will broaden the approach previously taken by CAHPP to include both a public health and social work perspective as the merged organization takes on new challenges related to the combined mission of improving the health and well-being of vulnerable populations.
Learn more about our combined organization on the CISWH About Us page.