Project Background

BPC’s Health Program strives to develop policy recommendations that improve the nation’s health outcomes and reduce preventable health care costs, geared towards the public and private sectors. The policy areas we focus on span public health and prevention, cost and coverage, behavioral health, long-term services and supports, chronic care, digital health, nutrition, workforce, pandemic preparedness, and rural health.

Responsibilities
Prospective interns may work on a variety of policy areas across the Health team’s portfolio and will be assigned base on the intern’s policy interests and the team’s current project needs. Applicants are encouraged to review the policy areas within the Health Program prior to applying to determine which areas they would be most interested in exploring and to include areas of interest in their application.

Interns will work with project staff on policy research, writing info briefs and blogs, event planning, congressional tracking, communications tasks, and administrative responsibilities, as needed. Topics of research and policy development could include:

• Reforming the nation’s public and private health care systems.
• Increasing efficiency of service delivery in Medicare and Medicaid.
• Promoting the integration of behavioral health and primary care services.
• Improving nutrition in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
• Accelerating the use of digital technologies to support patients, new models of care, research, and improvements in population health.
• Increasing investments in treatments for unmet or public health needs, and promoting policies that accelerate safe and effective treatments through the Food and Drug Administration.
• Improving access to long-term services and supports for those with complex needs.
• Addressing health care infrastructure, workforce, and health IT barriers to health care services in rural areas.
• Engaging large employers to improve the health of individuals and communities and fostering linkages between business and public health.
• Encouraging traditionally non-health federal agencies to support a “health in all policies approach” focused on the multiple determinants of health.

Qualifications

• Must be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate school
• Strong research and writing skills
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively
• Strong organizational skills and ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks
• Strong interest in health policy issues