Doi: 10.1377/hblog20200127.342624

During January, we list the most-read GrantWatch posts on Health Affairs Blog during 2019. For those readers who may not be familiar with it, GrantWatch is our series of posts on health philanthropy.

Readers will note that this year the most popular posts were on a variety of subjects:

* Nurses and social determinants of health,

* Medicare and the need for an oral health benefit,

* Black maternal health and a foundation’s different funding strategy to improve it,

* Mental health and the IMD exclusion in Medicaid, and

* How foundations are helping communities translate promising ideas into successful actions to improve community health.

Don’t forget to check out the GrantWatch section in each monthly issue of Health Affairs.

  1. Perfectly Positioned: Galvanizing Nurses To Address The Social Determinants Of Health

      Susan B. Hassmiller, April 30, 2019

Nurses are educated to understand factors shaping a person's life—whether that is poverty, unsafe housing, or addiction, and they know how to adapt care to best suit a patient's circumstances. At nearly four million people strong, nurses in the US are well positioned to help build a national culture of health—but they need the resources and tools to address the social determinants of health. Author Sue Hassmiller is with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

  1. Medicare Dental Benefit Will Improve Health And Reduce Health Care Costs

      Diane Oakes and Michael Monopoli, February 28, 2019

Oral health's connection to overall health is undeniable. The goal of advocates is for Medicare to provide a comprehensive dental benefit for all beneficiaries. The immediate push, though, is for CMS to cover medically necessary dental care for beneficiaries with chronic or debilitating conditions affected by oral health, and to make sure that the regulatory definition of "medically necessary" is comprehensive. Diane Oakes is with Arcora Foundation. Mike Monopoli is with the DentaQuest Partnership for Oral Health Advancement.

  1. Black Mothers’ Health: How Upending The Typical Grant Funding Structure Is Shifting Power To Improve It

      Joia Crear-Perry, June 6, 2019

The goal of the Mothers' Voices Driving Birth Equity project is to build a shared understanding and vision of respectful and dignified maternity care for black women. While "community engagement" in research has become an almost overused buzzword, the actual funding structure of most grants doesn't support the talk about prioritizing engagement. Here, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has chosen a different way. Joia Crear-Perry is with the National Birth Equity Collaborative.

  1. There Is No “Silver Bullet” For Mental Health: The Problem Of The IMD Exclusion

      Benjamin F. Miller and Emma Sandoe, April 2, 2019

A Bipartisan Policy Center report, released in partnership with Well Being Trust, contained options for how Congress can better address the integration of mental health and medical care. One is to repeal Medicaid's Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMD) provision, which prohibits payments for certain beneficiaries' inpatient care. These authors caution that greater investments in community-based services, as well as in IMDs and other forms of mental health care, are needed so that patients can seamlessly transition from inpatient to community settings and continue their treatment. Ben Miller is with Well Being Trust. Emma Sandoe is with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

  1. Cultivating Promising Ideas To Improve Community Health

      Douglas Easterling and Sabina Gesell, February 7, 2019

Health foundations are no longer relying on grant making as their sole strategy. Some funders are now using a "cultivation" approach, in which they find promising ideas that are already percolating in communities and help local residents translate them into effective actions to solve problems. These authors at Wake Forest School of Medicine explain how this works.

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