APA joined nearly 120 organizations in letters to the House (PDF, 123KB) and Senate (PDF, 123KB) Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittees supporting the investment of $500 million for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in fiscal year 2022. The request reflects an inflation adjustment from fiscal year 2010 as well as the “demonstrated needs of the pandemic.”
In collaboration with the Friends of AHRQ coalition, APA and other agency stakeholders emphasized AHRQ’s role as the “only federal agency that funds research at universities and other research institutions throughout the nation on health systems.” Highlighting “recent failures in the COVID-19 response” as well as the need for “more attention to the root causes of, and strategies for, addressing barriers to health care access,” the coalition stressed the need to address what can be done in primary care to achieve health equity. “Through this appropriation level, AHRQ will be better able to fund the ‘last mile’ of research from cure to care,” the coalition concluded.
For more information, contact Angela L. Sharpe, MG.