The Center for Health Workforce Studies (CHWS), housed in the Department of Family Medicine in the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine, received two grant awards totaling $4.5 million from the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis within the Bureau of Health Workforce of the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services. These five-year awards renew funding for UW CHWS’ Health Workforce Research Center (HWRC) Cooperative Agreement Programs in Allied Health and Health Equity in the Health Workforce. Under each program, UW CHWS will conduct four to five studies each year that aim to strengthen the knowledge base on the health workforce, addressing policy-relevant topics such as the barriers to and facilitators of retaining a diverse workforce as well as health care workers’ career pathways, work experiences, scope of practice, employer demand, and burnout.
Bianca K. Frogner, PhD, Director of CHWS and Professor in the Department of Family Medicine (DFM) is the Principal Investigator of both grants. Susan M. Skillman, MS, Senior Deputy Director of UW CHWS will be the Deputy Director of the Allied Health program and Davis Patterson, PhD, Research Associate Professor in DFM will be the Deputy Director of the program on Health Equity in the Health Workforce. Key personnel of the grants include Tracy Mroz, PhD, OTR/L, Associate Professor and Danbi Lee, PhD, OTD, OTR/L, Assistant Professor, both in the UW Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and LaTonya Trotter, PhD, MA, MPH, Associate Professor in the UW Department of Bioethics and Humanities. UW CHWS staff and affiliate faculty represent a broad range of disciplines including nursing, pharmacy, public health, rural health, physical therapy, occupational therapy, health economics, anthropology, and epidemiology.
UW CHWS is part of a network of HWRC programs around the country, each focusing on different yet overlapping topic areas of behavioral health, long-term care, oral health, public health, and emerging role, and including a health workforce technical assistance center. For more information about UW CHWS, visit our website or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.