Research in Action

At Healthforce Center, our research on the health care workforce offers timely analysis and guidance for providers, policymakers and funders in addressing critical delivery and improvement challenges. We have a team of nationally recognized research experts who work to define issues and support health policy change with rigorous analysis, high-quality data and actionable recommendations.


Our expertise covers the entire health workforce — the full range of licensed professions, credentialed occupations, and emerging roles such as community health workers and peer providers, and across all types of settings from acute to long-term care. We specialize in examining evolving trends in care models, care team composition, and promising new models for the delivery of high-quality health care.

Committed to Improving Health Equity

Our commitment to improving health equity and ensuring a diverse health workforce translates into research that emphasizes expanding cultural competence and language concordance, promoting workforce diversity through education and development programs, and evaluating care models that ensure health equity.

Search our Resources

  • The Care Team Integration of the Home-Based Workforce project seeks to improve health and satisfaction, and lower utilization costs by developing and introducing an untapped resource into the health care system – the personal home care aide (PHCA).  PHCAs are in a unique position with...
  • Established in 2007, the Clinic Leadership Institute (CLI) prepared health leaders of California community clinics and health centers to be effective and passionate agents of change. With participants ranging from administrative staff to new chief executive officers, CLI included two programs:...
  • Access to oral health care has become a growing concern over the past decade. Despite efforts to improve the oral health of the nation's population, oral health disparities persist. These disparities are characterized by compromised oral health status, particularly among certain vulnerable...
  • Information technology has become a priority in health systems around the country and will be an important resource in any national healthcare overhaul. Healthforce staff have completed evaluations of electronic medical systems in the Veterans Health Administration, the largest health system in the...
  • Healthforce Center has prepared a series of brief reports on California’s health care workforce in seven health professions for the University of California Office of the President. Optometry Workforce and Education in California Oral Health Workforce and Education in California...
  • Established in 2005, the California Improvement Network (CIN) is a learning and action community that advances equitable health care experiences and outcomes for Californians through cross-sector connections, spreading good ideas, and implementing improvements. Advancing health equity...
  • UCSF School of Nursing researchers received a two-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to assess the utilization of Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (PMHNPs) in public mental health settings in California. The UCSF research team, in partnership with the California...
  • Recent increases in enrollment in Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) due to the Affordable Care Act have heightened concerns about whether sufficient numbers of physicians are participating in Medi-Cal to provide beneficiaries with adequate access to care. Medi-Cal beneficiaries may have...
  • The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 expanded access to health insurance for millions of Americans. One likely effect of greater health insurance coverage is more demand for health care services, which will lead to a growing need for health care workers. In collaboration with colleagues at...
  • This four-year project is evaluating the effect of increasing access to professional interpreters for older hospitalized patients with limited English proficiency. The study is looking at impact on health care utilization, patient and caregiver satisfaction and knowledge, and clinicians’ use of...
  • Oral health is a significant concern among vulnerable populations that are plagued by coverage, quality, and payment challenges, as well as by other health issues. Racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in access to preventive dental care and treatment remain a public health challenge. Two of...

Pages