Assessing RWJF's portfolio of grants focusing on pre-emptive state laws harming progress toward health equity

The Foundation's initiative, Promoting and Protecting the Ability of Local Governments to Engage in Policy Innovation for Improving Population Health and Equity, was designed to promote and protect the ability of local governments to debate, enact, and evaluate innovative local policies for improving population health and health equity by: (1) monitoring pre-emption laws across a broad range of policy domains and assessing their impacts; (2) understanding the views of diverse stakeholders on local policy innovation and pre-emption to inform strategic communications; (3) connecting and diversifying coalitions working to advance local policy innovation; and (4) providing legal and policy technical assistance to support local policy innovation. This project will evaluate a RWJF Healthy Communities program that focuses on promoting and protecting the ability of local governments to engage in policy innovation for improving population health and equity. The evaluation will provide RWJF with evidence about the results of the Foundation's investment; insight into key challenges in reversing or stopping pre-emptive policies; and promising approaches to promote health equity through local policy. The grantee, Mathematica, in collaboration with the RWJF staff, will identify four communities and will employ a case-based approach to examine the combination of factors most associated with success and the relative contribution of RWJF's investment in these successes. Main deliverables will include: (1) a slide deck for an interim briefing, and (2) a final report accompanied with another slide deck. In addition, Mathematica will develop briefs for each of the four communities as part of the final report; the briefs may be shared as stand-alone products on RWJF's website. Mathematica may also organize a webinar where communities can speak about their work with stakeholders and other funders.