In an article published in Health Affairs, a research team led by Joel Cantor, Sc.D., of the Center for State Health Policy at Rutgers University evaluated the individual insurance market in New Jersey.⁽⁹⁾ The authors noted that improvements in access to employer-sponsored insurance had caused healthier enrollees to pull out of the individual insurance market, leaving sicker individuals with rapidly rising costs. In the coming year, Cantor will model alternative regulatory strategies for supporting the market to make it available for those who need it.

In addition to projects aimed at covering the uninsured, the Fund has supported work to help understand the consequences of insurance "churning," which occurs when people cycle on and off health insurance. Fund support has enabled researchers Laura Summer, Gerry Fairbrother, Ph.D., and Sherry Glied, Ph.D., to explore the issue, focusing on populations that experience the most churning, the impact on access to coverage and care, and the amount of health care dollars that are wasted. Early findings reported at an AcademyHealth meeting in June 2005 indicate that state policies can make a difference in insurance stability. One panelist—Vicki C. Grant, Ph.D., from the Southern Institute on Children and Families—illustrated how streamlining the Oregon Health Plan resulted in shorter enrollment times and fewer unintended disenrollments.

Finally, as part of efforts to address problems in the local community, the Fund supported the collection and analysis of new data about health in New York City. In partnership with the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Fund helped to produce reports on health disparities in New York and on issues surrounding women's health.^(10) (11) This work vividly illustrates a wide gap in the overall health status between rich and poor New Yorkers, as well as failures to achieve recommended levels of cancer screening and heart disease prevention, especially among women.