Appointed in 1963 as director of health services at the Office of Technical Cooperation and Research in the State Department’s Agency for International Development, Dr. Lee moved to the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1965 as deputy assistant secretary. During these initial years in Washington, DC, Dr. Lee was notable as one of the few physicians to support Medicare, and was distinguished for working to apply the Civil Rights Act to desegregate hospitals, establish the National Center for Health Services Research, and develop policies on physician payment and quality assurance.
Dr. Lee moved from the halls of government to those of academe in 1969 when he was selected as the third chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco. Among the many legacies of Dr. Lee's tenure is the Institute for Health Policy Studies, which he established with Lewis Buttler, L.L.B., in 1972 as a public service institution with a major responsibility to provide information and assistance to federal, state, and local policymakers. Upon joining the ranks of UCSF's emeriti faculty in 1993, Dr. Lee was beckoned back inside the Beltway to serve as assistant secretary for health and human services until January 1997. Resuming his status as an active emeritus faculty member, Dr. Lee serves as a senior scholar at the Institute for Health Policy Studies and a consulting professor in human biology at Stanford University.
Dr. Lee has frequently been an advisor to federal, state and local health policy makers, and has served on numerous advisory boards and planning groups. He has authored or co-authored 145 scholarly articles, coauthored numerous books, and served as editor on two major works, including The Nation's Health, now is in its fifth edition.
Award Presenter
Dr. Brian Biles is professor of health services management and policy at The George Washington University. Prior to his current position, Dr. Biles served for five years as the senior vice president of the Commonwealth Fund and for seven years as staff director of the Subcommittee on Health, Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives. He has also served on the staff of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Health chaired by Representative Henry Waxman and the Senate Labor Subcommittee on Health chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy. Dr. Biles received both his B.A. and M.D. from the University of Kansas, and he holds an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University.
The Challenge: Developing Effective Health Policy Research & Training
Improving health care and its delivery involves not only deciding between alternative practices and strategies, but also requires making hard choices among a seemingly endless retinue of policies posited to guide them. Should health care reform be market driven or legislated? Are high costs associated with end-of-life interventions offset by improved health? What delivery system offers the best model for our nation's millions of underinsured and uninsured? What treatments should be covered by insurance? Who should have access to the treatment? Should health plans, government agencies, or individuals decide how and when treatments will be used? A range of expertise and information is needed to answer such questions. To address these crucial issues, rigorous multidisciplinary research that directly informs policy choices, practices and strategies must be conducted and individuals capable of understanding and using such research require specialized training.
Ideally, health policy research and training, should, among other things, help generate instruments that contain costs and improve the quality of health services; assess the health impacts of new technologies; evaluate the expenses, risks and benefits of specific medical and public health interventions; and foster the rational allocation of health-care funds. All of which should assist in guiding the development of effective, equitable and affordable health care systems. This is the challenge of health policy research.
The School of Public Health Responds
Like the issue of health policy itself, the subject of health policy research and training is multidimensional and covers a vast expanse of subtext. Providing effective research and training programs in health policy is without question a complex and demanding challenge for our nation’s health professions educational system. To its credit, the UC Berkeley School of Public Health has a long, demonstrable and widely recognized record of success in meeting this very challenge.
Evidence of the School's excellence in conducting health policy-related research can be found in the efforts of nearly 35 percent of the faculty, all of whom have research interests in this area; three major affiliated research centers, including the Center for Health and Public Policy Studies, the Petris Center for Health Care Markets and Consumer Welfare, and the Center for Health research, which involves the participation of an additional 45 non-School of Public Health faculty from both UC Berkeley and UCSF; and approximately $15 million in active grant funding designated to support policy-related research initiatives.
Equally impressive are the array of health policy research-related training programs currently offered at the School of Public Health, which include the Division of Health Policy and Management's M.P.H. program and its joint degree programs with the Schools of Business and Public Policy, the Health Services and Policy Analysis doctoral program, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars Program in Health Policy Research. Collectively, these programs are producing professionals who are trained to conduct the kind of relevant research and analysis activities, which are critically needed to effectively inform choices of policy and practice.
