Prof. Rani Elwy, Ph.D., has been selected as one of seven professionals nationwide to join the 50th class of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health Policy Fellows. The prestigious program hones fellows’ skills in health policy development and places them in advisory positions in congressional and executive offices in Washington, D.C.
“This program is taking me out of my comfort zone – taking me away from research, mentoring, writing papers, teaching,” said Elwy, who directs the BRIDGE program, Brown’s implementation science core. “But all of those skills are going to be so important in what I’m doing, bringing evidence into policy decisions so that they’re driven by research.”
Elwy will relocate to Washington, D.C., for the intensive, one-year program, which starts in September. (In her absence, Hannah Frank, Ph.D., will become acting director of the BRIDGE program, and Ruben Martinez, Ph.D., will become acting associate director.)
The RWJF Health Policy Fellows program begins with a multi-month orientation, in which fellows meet with national health leaders, think tanks, officials, and legislators and learn about pertinent topics such as health economics, congressional budgets, and federal decision-making. Fellows are then placed as senior advisors in key offices where they develop health policy proposals and brief decision-makers on important health matters.
Elwy’s participation in the RWJF Health Policy Fellows program is her latest – and most prominent – foray into the workings of leadership and governance. Earlier this year, Elwy was selected to participate in the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program, a leadership development program that draws on lessons from the presidencies of George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Lyndon B. Johnson. She is also an elected Town Meeting member and an appointed Advisory Committee member for the Town of Wellesley, Mass.
Elwy thinks of her growing interest in policy as a natural extension of implementation science, the study of how to best implement evidence-based practices into routine clinical and community-based care.
“We know in implementation science that true sustainability in anything we do often only comes with policy change, whether that’s on the level of health systems or on the level of local, state, or federal legislation,” she said.
As an example, Elwy cites the impact that the federal Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) of 2016 made on her work as an implementation scientist at the VA. Before the bill’s passage, Elwy said, it was near-impossible to find funding for non-traditional PTSD therapies, such as yoga and meditation, that her research showed veterans wanted. The CARA Act changed all that by earmarking funds for non-pharmacological approaches to mental health treatment in the VA health care system.
“With a swoop of a pen, there were now substantial funds every year to do this work,” she said. “I was no longer the floundering researcher. That act changed my entire research life.”
Elwy hopes to help enact similarly vital changes in her role as an RWJF Health Policy Fellow.
“I could be helping to write legislation that could one day change the lives of millions of patients, maybe tens of researchers who are trying to do work in this space, and also all the clinicians who are trying to provide the best care possible for their patients,” she said. “It’s a perfect example of why in implementation science, we need to be focused on policy.”