The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 represents the most significant reform of the U.S. health care system in decades. It was enacted with the goals of increasing access to health insurance, enhancing the quality of care and moderating the growth in costs. The new law is likely to have far reaching effects, beyond the way health insurance markets operate and beyond its impact on population health outcomes. It is those other effects of the ACA that we seek to understand.
This Russell Sage Foundation initiative will support innovative social science research on the social, economic and political effects of the Affordable Care Act. We are especially interested in funding analyses that address important questions about the effects of the reform on outcomes such as financial security and family economic well-being, labor supply and demand, participation in other public programs, family and children’s outcomes, and differential effects by age, race, ethnicity, nativity, or disability status. We are also interested in research that examines the political effects of the implementation of the new law, including changes in views about government, support for future government policy changes, or the impact on policy development outside of health care. Funding is available for secondary analysis of data or for original data collection. We welcome projects that propose novel uses of existing data, as well as projects that propose to analyze newly available or underutilized data. We will not fund research on the effects of the ACA on health care delivery or health outcomes (e.g., barriers to implementation, changes in the quality of care and health status, or trends in enrollment and affordability); other funders already do that.
Examples of the kinds of topics and questions that are of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Financial Security and Family Economic Well-Being
- Labor Market Outcomes
- Public Program Participation
- Family and Children’s Outcomes
- Immigrant Outcomes
- Effects on Politics, Political Culture, and Public Policy
- Outcomes for Underserved Groups
Eligibility
All applicants (both PIs and Co-PIs) must have a Ph.D. or comparable terminal degree, or a strong career background that establishes their ability to conduct high-level, peer-reviewed scholarly research. RSF particularly encourages early career scholars to apply for Presidential awards.
All nationalities are eligible to apply and applicants do not have to reside in the U.S. RSF does not accept applications for Project and Presidential Awards from doctoral or other graduate students, unless specified in a special RFP.
Full details are available here.
Funding Available
Awards are available for research assistance, data acquisition, data analysis, and investigator time for conducting research and writing up results. Applications should limit budget requests to no more than a two-year period, with a maximum of $150,000 (including overhead) per project. Projects that use publicly available data are capped at $75,000, including overhead. Presidential Awards, with a maximum budget of $35,000 (no overhead allowed) are also available. Our website lists upcoming deadlines and provides detailed information about submitting letters of inquiry, proposals and budgets.
Useful Links
Full details regarding the call are available here.
Deadlines
| CORIS Internal Deadline | Please contact Research Facilitator |
| Letter of Inquiry (LOI) Deadline | August 20, 2018 (2 pm ET/11 am PT) |
| cuResearch Checklist | November 8, 2018 |
| Invited Proposal Deadline | November 15, 2018 (2 pm ET/11 am PT) |
Submitting Your cuResearch Application
- Applications must be submitted via cuResearch, through which the Departmental Chair and Associate Dean’s approval must be provided to complete the online application process.
- More information on cuResearch can be found here.
Internal Contacts
If you would like assistance with proposal development and/or a substantive review of your proposal, please contact the appropriate Research Facilitator.