The Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy (MPP)

Research

 
Faculty/Student Team Projects

2007 Projects

 

Project #1: Legislative Option for Improving Access to Physician Care for Medicaid Recipients

 

The Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy (the “Center”) will develop specific legislative proposals for the House Appropriations Committee of the Virginia General Assembly to increase access to physician care under Medicaid. Contrary to the belief among provider groups, increasing Medicaid payments or reimbursements is not enough to solve the problem of physician access in rural or underserved areas of the state. Other states have taken steps to reform their health programs in 2007, so Virginia can learn from the developments taking place in these states when considering reforming their own system.

 

The Center will determine how to craft a legislative proposal concerning physician access for Medicaid recipients by examining health services research from the last twenty-five years; looking at why some physicians do not currently participate in Virginia Medicaid; exploring the differences among the geographically diverse areas of the state and what effect location has on physician access; and coming up with innovations that could be adopted in payment policy for Medicaid. The Center will use data from Medicaid and the Department of Health Professionals. It will also conduct a narrow study of ten other states, and interview the Medicaid Director and representatives from provider associations.

 

Project #2: What is a “Normally Expected” Mortality Rate for Children with Emotional or Behavioral Disturbances in Virginia Residential Facilities?

 

The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), in 2006, assessed the safety of children receiving residential services under the Comprehensive Services Act. In response to findings that Virginia’s regulatory environment did not adequately safeguard the health and safety of children in these facilities, the Center will conduct a study comparing the incidence of children’s deaths in residential facilities with the death rates of children with similar characteristics who are not in Virginia’s residential facilities.

 

The Center will conduct a literature review of studies of children’s mortality rates; an assessment of whether each observed population has a lower or higher mortality rate than that of children in Virginia residential facilities due to emotional or behavioral disturbances; and an analysis of whether states with stronger regulations and/or better enforcement efforts have lower mortality rates for institutionalized children.

 

Project #3: State Policies to Promote and Support Rural Entrepreneurship

 

The Center will develop policy ideas to help enhance prosperity and dynamism in rural regions by specifically enhancing organic regional growth through the promotion and support of entrepreneurship.  Entrepreneurship is on of the most crucial elements for economic renewal; the most successful regions of the world are ones where businesses are rapidly created, generating jobs and revenue for the region. 

 

The Center will provide review, analysis, and policy recommendations of state policies to promote and support rural entrepreneurship. The Center will examine challenges faced by rural communities in the context of the changing global economy; identify necessary elements of entrepreneurship and how they relate to the challenges faced by rural communities; analyze the strengths and weaknesses of state, federal, and philanthropic programs designed to promote and support rural entrepreneurship; and develop recommendations for policy and/or programs that may best help rural communities. The Center will present their main findings of the policy report to the National Governors Association.

 

Project #4: What Lessons can be Learned from Prior Attempts at National Security Reform in the United States?

 

The Center will determine what lessons can be learned from prior attempts at National Security reform in the United States. The Center will work with the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR), and will examine the 1947 National Security Act, the 1949 National Security Act Amendments, the Key West Agreement, the Defense Reorganization Act of 1958, the Quadrennial Defense Review, the creation of the National Economic Council and the Homeland Security Council, the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, and the Homeland Security Act of 2002. 

 

In looking at these programs and reforms, the Center will consider what factors necessitated their creation; how the reforms overcame political opposition in order to be enacted; what key characteristics of the reform efforts caused them to be successful or unsuccessful; and what lessons, if any, can be pulled from these targeted reforms to a broader reform effort in today’s national security environment. The Center will produce a 60 page report on the topic, and will present the results in early December to the PNSR.

 

Project #5: The Economic Impacts of Recycling in Virginia

 

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) asks the Center to conduct an economic regional analysis that identifies and quantifies the economic benefits related to recycling, reuse, source reduction, composting, and any other recycling-based activities in the state of Virginia. The Center will consider such variables of analysis as the number of related jobs in the state; the number of recycling-related businesses operating in the state; revenues generated from those businesses and/or companies; and any other GDP information that can be attributed to their activity. The Center will conduct a literature review, and will compare this set of information with that of other states that have conducted similar studies/

 

Project #6: How Government Redirects its Efforts to Improve Effectiveness

 

The MITRE Corporation is a nonprofit organization chartered to work in the public interest by applying their expertise in systems engineering, information technology, operational concepts, and enterprise modernization to address the federal government’s critical needs. The Center will identify how government redirects activity from something that is less effective to a new, more effective approach. The Center will identify mechanisms within government that automatically encourages change after an undesirable performance evaluation; such mechanisms would require the ineffective actions stop and be replaced by more effective activity. The Center will identify any such mechanisms and develop an understanding of how they function. The Center will present its findings to the MITRE team in Mclean, VA.

 

Project #7: Effectiveness of Available Juvenile Services Across the Commonwealth of Virginia (Both Public and Private): Which Programs are the Most Cost-Effective Programs and Which Boast the Lowest Recidivism Rates?

 

The Virginia State Crime Commission (VSCC) has been directed by the Virginia General Assembly to conduct a two-year study of Virginia’s juvenile justice system. The Center will work as a part of this study, specifically examining the cost-effectiveness of diversion programs in each of Virginia’s localities. Diversion programs consist of any program or activity in which the juvenile participates in lieu of going through the court system. 

 

The Center will conduct a survey of intake officers in each of the state’s localities to determine how they decide to divert juveniles and if any patterns of selection exist; examine the effect of diversion programs on recidivism rates among juvenile offenders; explore how cost-effective diversion programs are; and determine the feasibility of enacting a uniform, state-wide diversion program for juvenile offenders. Data for the study will be gathered from the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Virginia Juvenile Justice Association. Finding will be presented to the VSCC.

 

Project #8: The State of WorkingVirginia

 

The Center will collaborate with the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis to research, write, and publish a report entitled The State of Working Virginia. This report will summarize and draw findings concerning the problems and challenges facing Virginia’s workers, presenting a wide variety of data on family incomes, taxes, wages, unemployment, wealth, and poverty. The report will answer such questions as how are Virginia’s workers faring; are wages and benefits growing and unemployment declining; is economic opportunity being shared widely; and are all demographic groups within the population prospering equally?

 

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) will provide assistance to the Center in terms of technical assistance, data analysis, and expert pre-publication review of the report. The Center will meet with both EPI and the Commonwealth Institute to determine how to conduct the study. 

Past Projects

City of Hampton -- In addition to the student-led survey projects mentioned above, the Center has conducted other research for the City of Hampton. Center staff, for example, developed and implemented a plan to evaluate the Hampton Healthy Start Program (a program focusing on prevention with special attention given to child abuse and neglect issues) and the Healthy Community Program (a program for the general Hampton community focusing on, among other things, parent education classes). This evaluation included analyses of the Programs’ processes and outcomes and a cost-benefit analysis of the Healthy Start Program.

City of Norfolk and the Virginia Environmental Endowment -- The Center was involved in several efforts related to brownfields, defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as “an abandoned, idled, or under used industrial or commercial site where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination that can add cost, time or uncertainty to a redevelopment project".  In 1998, Center staff made a presentation about increasing the potential of brownfields redevelopment to City of Norfolk personnel, including the City Manager and individuals with expertise in economic development, zoning, public works, environmental health sciences, finance, and inspections. Most recently, with the support of the Virginia Environmental Endowment, the Center completed comprehensive and condensed guides for local government officials on federal and state laws and policies related to brownfields.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U. S. Department of Defense/National Academy of Sciences -- For the evaluation of FNASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, Center staff analyzed the results of a survey conducted of all SBIR contracts from the NASA Langley Research Center awarded in 1995 or before. The SBIR Program was created to stimulate technological innovation, foster and encourage participation by minority and disadvantaged persons in technological innovation, and increase private sector commercialization of innovations derived from federal research and development. Specifically, Center staff looked at the commercial success of the technologies developed under the program as well as other economic and non-economic outcomes, including investment and job creation. This NASA project was followed by a project for the U. S. Department of Defense’s SBIR Program under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences.

Olde Towne Medical Center (OTMC) -- The Center is currently conducting a study focusing on the role of OTMC in providing health services to the medically indigent population of the Greater Williamsburg Area, both now and in the future. As part of this study, Center staff will review OTMC’s history as well as its mission, services provided, patient profile, capital and financing needs, Board structure, and private and public partnerships. In addition, Center staff will analyze the pattern of use of emergency room services for primary care at Williamsburg Community Hospital and the extent to which OTMC is saving the Hospital money by providing primary care to the medically indigent. Finally, Center staff will analyze the commitments, both financial and non-financial, of the surrounding political jurisdictions – James City County, York County, and the City of Williamsburg – that have a stake in the public health system for the Greater Williamsburg Area.

State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) -- The Thomas Jefferson Program staff assisted SCHEV in evaluating nonproductive academic degree programs in the Commonwealth’s community colleges and senior institutions of higher learning. As part of these evaluation efforts, the Center recommended closure, continuation, or probation for all programs reviewed and provided recommendations to improve the Commonwealth’s next productivity review.

Virginia Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Program -- In a study commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly, the Center completed an evaluation of the Virginia Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Program. This Program, which sponsored the study, is designed to take the cases of neurologically damaged babies out of the tort system and provide them with benefits, such as medically necessary services, homes, and lost wages when the child reaches age 18. As part of the evaluation, Center staff analyzed the Program’s operation, eligibility criteria, geographic distribution of cases, benefits provided, fee structure, management of the fund supporting the Program, participation by hospitals and physicians, and the Program’s strengths and weaknesses as viewed by legislators, representatives of hospitals and insurance companies, physicians, nurses, and the parents of severely neurologically injured children who received services through the Program. The Center’s report was published as a legislative study for the General Assembly.

Virginia Environmental Endowment -- The Center organized and facilitated planning for the Powhatan Creek Watershed. The Center’s efforts included organizing a community group, monitoring methods for addressing pollution control and stream ecology in the watershed area, assisting in the development and implementation of an education program to neighborhood associations in James City County, and evaluating the education program’s effectiveness.

Virginia State Crime Commission -- In its 1999 session, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation that directed “the Virginia State Crime Commission to study crime prevention strategies that involve targeted early intervention programs. ”In response to this legislative directive, the Crime Commission asked the Center to conduct an inventory of prevention and early intervention programs in Virginia, supported by the Federal government and the Commonwealth of Virginia, that are designed to keep youth from getting involved in the criminal justice system. Center staff developed a methodology for including or excluding programs based on their relationship to risk factors that increase youth’s chances of coming in contact with the criminal justice system and/or protective factors that help protect youth from entering that system. Center staff are currently obtaining information on each federal, state, and local program to be included in the study.