Health Policy Update: May 15, 2025

In an effort to help our Funding Partners better understand the changing health policy landscape in the new administration and Congress, Grantmakers In Health (GIH) is expanding the GIH Health Policy Update newsletter to three issues per month. Working in collaboration with Leavitt Partners, a leading health care policy consultancy, we are adding new installments of the newsletter on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, while we will continue to partner with Trust for America’s Health on the installment released on the second Wednesday of the month.

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Creating Public Will to End Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities

Each year disparities in health status and health care take a toll on members of racial and ethnic minority groups that translates into preventable illness and death. If the United States eliminated the black-white mortality gap alone, it has been estimated that as many as 84,000 deaths could be prevented annually.

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Infant Mortality: Racial and Regional Disparities

Infant mortality is an important measure of maternal and child health status, as well as a broader indicator of a society’s health and well-being. In the United States infant mortality rates have held stubbornly at about 7 percent for the last 10 years. This statistic, however, masks significant racial and regional disparities.

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Strengthening Government Public Health Agencies

Health funders at the national, state, and local levels have made substantial commitments to improve the functionality of the public health system. Using a variety of approaches, they seek to develop the capabilities, services, and competencies that enhance public health practice.

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Bridging, Building, and Beyond: Acceptance Speech of the 2008 Terrance Keenan Leadership Award

The following remarks are excerpted from Terri Langston’s acceptance speech for the Terrance Keenan Leadership Award delivered on February 28, 2008, at the GIH Annual Meeting on Health Philanthropy.

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Critical Services for Our Children: Integrating Mental and Oral Health into Primary Care

Grantmakers have long been interested in improving children’s access to health care. Yet, a number of services critical to children’s healthy growth and development—such as mental health and oral health services—fall outside the traditional primary care model. This fragmentation of services has contributed to access barriers and has compromised the quality of pediatric care. Growing awareness of the importance of mental health and oral health has resulted in a variety of innovative efforts to integrate these services into children’s health care.

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Serving Our Veterans: Filling the Gaps in Military Mental Health

Stories of devastation on the evening news depict families struggling to cope with the health and mental health problems of their loved ones who have served in the military. For too many, help is not coming quickly enough.

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Connecting to Community and Building Accountability

Foundations formed from health care conversions are very much engaged with their communities and seek their involvement in program planning and priority setting, according to a new report from Grantmakers In Health (GIH). The findings in Connecting to Community and Building Accountability reveal that the majority of health foundations promote some kind of community input in their work, although most are not required to do so.  

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