PRRAC - Grant Reports

Research products of completed projects are available from PRRAC. Bracketed italicized identifiers [e.g. F301] are PRRAC's internal project numbers, used here to match grant descriptions with research products.

Short reports on the research work and updates on the advocacy work this research has supported regularly appear in PRRAC's bimonthly newsletter journal Poverty & Race -- the relevant issues of P&R are noted at the end of each project description. Send PRRAC a self-addressed, stamped envelope for copies of these articles.

+ Alan Meyers, a pediatrician whose previous studies of the school breakfast program have been extremely useful to food and nutrition advocates, is following up a preliminary study with full-scale research on the difference in incidence of iron deficiency among children living in subsidized vs. unsubsidized housing; earlier results indicate that the former have far lower rates, presumably because paying a far smaller percentage of income for rent permits higher food expenditures and better nutrition. Racial differences were highlighted. The results will be used by state and national housing and food advocacy groups in efforts to increase government housing subsidies.
[F201] Grant amount: $6,500.
Contact: Dr. Alan Meyers, Dept. Pediatrics, Boston City Hospital, 818 Harrison Ave., Boston, MA 02118, 617/534-4719.
See article in Poverty & Race, Vol. 3, No. 4.

+ Labor/Community WATCHDOG, a project of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, focusses on the state's clean air plan and community organizing around a 1987 California state law requiring corporations with high emission levels of toxics to warn at-risk communities. The research involves reading highly technical health risk assessment reports and working with community organizers to develop a process of analyzing and using the data from an organizer's perspective. A concrete organizing strategy around four major issues is planned: seriousness of the risk; who should be warned; language of the warning; method of notifying people. Ruben McDavid, Senior Air Quality Engineer with Environmental Science and Engineering, was engaged to carry out this project. The Center has an overall goal of building a new multi-racial urban politics in LA County, with particular emphasis on direct action campaigns against multi-national corporations.
[F110] Grant amount: $10,000.
Contact: Eric Mann, Labor/Community Strategy Center, 3780 Wilshire Blvd., #1200, Los Angeles, CA 90010, 213/387-2800.
See article in Poverty & Race, Vol. 3, No. 6.

+ The Labor/Community Strategy Center is continuing its research and multi-race organizing/advocacy work around air quality issues. Funds are supporting their new technical consultant, Robert Ginsburg, in challenging official health risk assessment methodologies and translating technical air quality reports into materials usable in community organizing and public education work.
[F221] Grant amount: $9,000.
Contact: Eric Mann, Labor/Community Strategy Center, 3780 Wilshire Blvd., #1200, Los Angeles, CA 90010, 213/387-2800.

+ The Public Law Center/Orange County Health Organizing and Action Project is identifying patients who have experienced barriers to health care access, in violation of California's Indigent Medical Services program. The OCHOAP has worked on the access issue for many years, via: (1) access-oriented research and policy analysis (undertaken largely by a group of physicians at UC--Irvine Medical School, led by Howard Waitzkin); (2) direct-action organizing and advocacy; (3) legal action, coordinated by the Public Law Center. A class action is planned against the county on behalf of poor persons eligible for IMS who are not receiving benefits.
[F130] Grant amount: $10,000.
Contact: Dr. Howard Waitzkin, Family & Community Medicine, Univ. New Mexico, 2400 Tucker NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131.

+ The Tennessee Health Care Campaign's "Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition" researched lack of access to prenatal care, delivery and related services to pregnant women who are Medicaid recipients or Medicaid-eligible, in support of a suit filed against the Tenn. Dept. of Health. A telephone survey of all maternity providers assessed the number of care providers who will accept Medicaid-insured and -eligible patients and the conditions of acceptance; a second survey tested the accuracy of this provider-reported data; and a third survey tested differential treatment of recipients based on race.
[F228] Grant amount: $9,000.
Contact: Tony Garr, Tenn. Health Care Campaign, 1103 Chapel Ave., Nashville, TN 37206, 615/227-7500.
See article in Poverty & Race, Vol. 5, No. 4 & Vol. 8, No. 3.

+* Carol Korenbrot, Ayesha Gill and Dana Hughes of the University of California--San Francisco Institute for Health Policy Studies undertook a reconnaissance of the availability, quality and dissemination of health care data objectives and programming at the federal level, with emphasis on data relating to persons of color and the poor. The report will be used as part of a broader advocacy project -- involving parallel PRRAC-commissioned studies in the areas of education, housing and income maintenance -- to create data collection and dissemination systems more useful to advocates.
[FDR103] Contract amount: $16,000.
Contact: Carol Korenbrot, Institute for Health Policy Studies/UCSF, 1388 Sutter St., 11th flr., San Francisco, CA 94109, 415/476-3094.

+* The California Budget Project, Alabama Arise, the North Carolina Budget & Tax Center, Voices for Illinois Children & The [Texas] Center for Public Policy Priorities have been commissioned to participate in PRRAC's State Data Reconnaissance Project, which seeks to improve the quantity, quality, relevance and dissemination of data on the impact of health (as well as education, housing and income maintenance) programs on low-income and minority beneficiaries. Each state organization has produced data reconnaissance studies in these four areas and is undertaking advocacy work to remedy defects uncovered. The state-level project will be integrated with PRRAC's parallel Federal Data Reconnaissance Project.
[CADR103, ALDR103, NCDR103, ILDR103, TXDR103] Grant amounts: Varied.
Contacts: Jean Ross, California Budget Project, 921 11th St., #502 Sacramento, CA 95814, 916/444-0500; Kimble Forrister, Alabama Arise, PO Box 612, Montgomery, AL 36101, 334/832-9060; Dan Gerlach, North Carolina Budget & Tax Center, PO Box 27343, Raleigh, NC 27611, 919/856-2158; Jerry Stermer, Voices for Illinois Children, 208 S. LaSalle, Chicago, IL 60604, 312/456-0600; Diane Stewart, Center for Public Policy Priorities, 900 Lydia St., Austin, TX 78702, 512/320-0222.
See article in Poverty & Race, Vol. 7, No. 4

PRRAC Grantee Products and Final Reports

Copies of the following materials, as well as further information on the project, may be obtained by contacting the organization listed. Where available, prices and page length are indicated. Items available from PRRAC, if they are lengthy, may require paying photocopying costs. Project numbers are given to enable cross-reference back to the project descriptions.

A final report on The Orange County Health Care Organizing and Action Project (February 1993, 115 pp.), published by and available from the Public Law Center, 600 W. Santa Ana Blvd., #202, Santa Ana, CA 92701, 714/541-1010. [F130]

Health Care Reform: Data Reconnaissance Project, by Ayesha Gill, Carol Korenbrot & Dana Hughes (June 1994, 22 pp. + Tables), available from PRRAC. [FDR103]

Risk Factors for Undernutrition in Low-Income Children - Final Report, Part 1, by Alan Meyers, Samuel Theodore, Sujata Dixit & Devall Canning-Shah (January 1996, 16 pp. + Atts), available from Dr. Meyers, Dept. Pediatrics, Boston City Hospital, 818 Harrison Ave., Boston, MA 02118, 617/534-4719. [F201]

Prenatal Care Access for Medicaid Moms in Tennessee, by Tony Garr (1996), available from the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, 1103 Chapel Ave., Nashville, TN 37206-2446, 615/227-7500. [F228]

Analysis of Data Collection and Reporting in State Supported Health Programs, by Gale Berkowitz (February 1996, 37 pp. + Apps.), available from PRRAC. [CDR4]

Maternal & Child Health Data Sources in Illinois, by Mary Kate Weber & Arden Handler (March 1997, 40 pp. + App.), available from Voices for Illinois Children. 208 S. LaSalle, #1580, Chicago, IL 60604, 312/456-0600. [ILDR 103]

A Review of Existing Alabama State Data on Health, by David Dawson & Stan Johnson (May 1997, 22 pp.), available from Alabama Arise, 207 Montgomery St., #810, Montgomery, AL 36102, 334/832-9060. [ALDR 103]

A Review of State Data Collection by State Administered Health Programs in Texas, by Anne Dunkelberg (April 1997, 189 pp.), available from the Center for Public Policy Priorities, 900 Lydia St., Austin, TX 78702, 512/320-0222. [TXDR 103]