Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Obama Administration created the federal Health Insurance Navigator Program, which seeks to reduce the rate of uninsured in the United States. Under this program, navigators help people procure insurance coverage through federally facilitated Marketplaces (or Exchanges). During COVID-19, financial insecurity and substantial budget cuts created increased shortages and…
Birth doulas, who support pregnant women during the perinatal period, have positive impacts on pregnancy and birth outcomes, particularly among underserved populations. However, health workforce-related barriers challenge the development of robust doula services in the United States. This article examines various approaches to train, recruit, and employ doulas, as well as what system-level changes are…
Navigators in the federal Insurance Navigator Program provide enrollment assistance, outreach, and education to individuals who are eligible for health insurance coverage. Their work is key to public health efforts to address inequities but continues to be poorly understood and undervalued. This article examines the navigator profession to better understand the equity work they do,…
Implicit bias of healthcare providers often influences patient care. Bias awareness is a key element included in implicit bias education and can help motivate behavior change. This article discusses a study that evaluated whether exposure to a brief online course on implicit bias increased bias awareness for health providers.
The primary role of the clinical laboratory workforce is to collect and analyze biological specimens to provide patients and medical providers information for preventing, diagnosing, treating, and managing disease. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role that the clinical laboratory workforce plays in the healthcare system. This policy brief focuses on 6 clinical lab…
Increasing nursing workforce diversity is essential to quality health care. Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) programs are a primary path to becoming a registered nurse and an important source of nursing diversity. While public institutions contribute the highest total number of diverse ADN graduates, private for-profit institutions have the highest percentage of non-white graduates. This…
The traditional role of physical therapists is to prescribe exercises and provide hands-on care to help patients develop, maintain, and restore functional ability that may be limited by injuries, aging, and chronic or progressive diseases. A primary impact of the COVID-19 emergency on physical therapists has been an involuntarily reduction of employment due to a…
Pharmacists provide a broad spectrum of services depending on their practice setting and scope-of-practice laws within their state. Lately, pharmacists have been increasingly used in a variety of ways, taking on roles such as medication therapy management, chronic disease management, patient education, health promotion, and disease prevention. To take on this surge in demand, states…
This rapid-response brief provides information about the respiratory therapist workforce in the US. It includes descriptions of the supply, distribution, and education pathways of the workforce. The brief also addresses COVID-19 emergency concerns about the respiratory therapist workforce capacity and examples of state approaches to address workforce gaps.
