Urge Your Members of Congress to Participate in Your Congress-Your Health

Research!America and our partners have launched Your Congress-Your Health. Every Member of Congress has been invited to respond to a questionnaire about medical research, the deficit, and support for federal agencies that conduct research to improve health (NIH, FDA, CDC, NSF, and AHRQ). Please contact your Representative and Senators TODAY to urge them to respond to the questionnaire.

Cuts to research funding have already occurred at NIH, NSF, CDC, and AHRQ. That is why it is more important than ever for Americans know where lawmakers stand on these critical issues.

Take action now!

Do You Know Your Members of Congress?

Either way, today is the day to get in touch with your member in the House of Representatives.

The House is currently crafting a spending bill that may include unprecedented funding cuts to NIH, NSF, CDC, AHRQ and FDA. These cuts represent a major threat to the nation’s health, job growth and competitiveness.

It is critical that you contact your representatives TODAY so they know that cuts to American research are unacceptable.

It's about your job. Your health and the future well-being of your family. It takes 30 seconds to send a message and another 30 seconds to share with your contacts via email or Facebook.

Your minute could be the constituent voice that convinces Congress to protect research.

Come to the 2011 National Health Research Forum

The Research!America annual National Health Research Forum is an amazing opportunity to hear leaders of the health research community talk about the issues of today and tomorrow. Below is the full invitation and I definitely recommend anyone who can attending. (Bonus: you can meet some of your fellow New Voices in person!)

Tuesday, March 15, 2011
11:45 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Join Research!America for the 2011 National Health Research Forum on March 15! This annual event brings together heads of federal agencies for health and science research, as well as leaders from industry, academia and patient advocacy.

Lunch will be served at 11:45 a.m. and Research!America's chair, The Honorable John Edward Porter, will provide welcoming remarks beginning at 12:10 p.m. Michael Riley, managing editor of Bloomberg Government, and Clive Crook, senior editor of The Atlantic, will serve as moderators for two back-to-back panels with audience Q&A.

Confirmed panelists include:

• John J. Castellani, president and CEO, PhRMA
• The Hon. Mike Castle, member of U.S. Congress (1993-2011)
• Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, director, National Institutes of Health
• Victor Dzau, MD, chancellor of health affairs, Duke University
• Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Margaret A. Hamburg, MD, commissioner, Food and Drug Administration
• Harry Johns, MBA, president & CEO, Alzheimer\'s Association
• David C. Page, MD, director, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
• Ellen V. Sigal, PhD, founder and president, Friends of Cancer Research
• Elias Zerhouni, MD, president, global research and development, sanofi-aventis

Learn more about the National Health Research Forum, and register online today. Admission for Research!America members is complementary.

Research!America thanks our sponsors: sanofi-aventis; Pfizer, Inc; PhRMA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Battelle; Infocast; Zogby International; and Health Affairs.


For information other than sponsorship opportunities, contact Michelle Hernandez at mhernandez at researchamerica.org.

Make sure to leave us a comment and let us know you're coming!

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

AHRQ - the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality - sometimes pronounced "ark," is part of the Department of Health and Human Services with a mission

"to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. Information from AHRQ's research helps people make more informed decisions and improve the quality of health care services."

Sounds good to me; so why hadn't I heard of AHRQ until a few years ago? AHRQ was originally known as the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, but the purview has changed over time from policy to health services. The simplest definition of what AHRQ does is that the agency figures out what does and does not work in terms of health and health care and then translates that information into "everyday practice and policymaking."

As comparative effectiveness and personalized medicine become more prominent and health care reform begins to take effect, data collected by AHRQ helps improve efficiency and safety for everyone receiving any amount of health care in America.

“The essence of care delivery is in dramatic, urgent need of improvement. We know that the translation of science into practice takes far too long. We also know that we can improve that. We are working toward reliable and affordable quality care for all. Science is clearly going to be a key part of that.”

—Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

With less than 350 people on staff, AHRQ is relatively small in comparison to some other government health research agencies, but their work is just as important and is a perfect complement to translating the research and practices of its sister agencies like the National Institutes of Health (which we'll be covering later in this series).


This is Part 3 in the Introduction to Federal Agencies series.
Part 1 - Acronyms, Abbreviations and Agencies
Part 2 - A-B...C-D-C?

Acronyms, Abbreviations and Agencies

Washington, DC is a city whose vernacular is deeply rooted in acronyms and abbreviations. Sometimes it feels like you need a top secret clearance or access to a guide book of all the different non-profits, for-profits, voluntary health groups, patient groups, and federal agencies. For (completely made up) example, "We recently saw the CBO's numbers for LHHS, but they don't match the OMB numbers that we saw a month ago regarding NIH or CDC."

If you understood that, hooray for you! If not, you're not alone. Heck, I'm pretty sure the CBO doesn't even have numbers for LHHS. But the point is there are an awful lot of groups around here talking about an amazing number of things - many of which deserve our attention.

Here at New Voices, there are four federal agencies we talk about a lot:

1. AHRQ - Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
2. CDC - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
3. FDA - Food and Drug Administration
4. NIH - National Institutes of Health

We're going to help decode these four multi-letter names so you can see the agencies behind them over the next few weeks. Come back tomorrow for Kimberly's look into the CDC.