Institute of Health Policy Studies The Institute of Health Policy Studies was founded by University of California, San Francisco professor of social medicine and former University Chancellor, Philip R. Lee, M.D., in 1972. It was established as the Health Policy Program with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the University of California. In 1977 the Institute was awarded a five-year grant from the National Center for Health Services Research, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, as the only national Health Services Policy Analysis Center. In February 1981 the University of California Board of Regents designated the Institute as a UCSF campus-wide organized research unit within the University. As of 1985 the Institute's budget was over $3.5 million and has received grants and contracts from over 30 public and private funding agencies for the support of research, teaching, technical assistance, and dissemination activities. The institute expanded from a small group of faculty members focused on federal health policy to a diverse group of faculty, fellows, and professional research staff who represent a broad range of clinical and social science disciplines and methods. In 2005 IHPS faculty have appointments in all four schools at UCSF (medicine, pharmacy, nursing, and dentistry). The primary goals of the IHPS are: to conduct policy-oriented research and analysis on a wide range of health issues; to apply research findings to health policy issues at the national, state, and local levels; and to provide education and training opportunities in health policy and health services research.

Lee, the founder and original director of IHPS, also served as the first president of the seven-person Health Commission for the City and County of San Francisco, established in January 1985. The commission is the governing body for the Department of Public Health of the City and County of San Francisco, and must approve all public health related budget requests submitted to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors.

AIDS Resource Program Responding to a growing number of visits and requests for information on San Francisco's successful, comprehensive, coordinated AIDS services system, the IHPS submitted a grant of $600,000 to The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to create the AIDS Resource Program of the Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco. The grant which funded the ARP ran from January 1, 1986 - December 31, 1988.

Previous to the 1985 grant request the Institute had conducted a series of policy-relevant studies relating to the AIDS epidemic, particularly studies relating to costs and to the organization, management and financing of community-based services. The Institute also initiated several studies on community-based services to help clarify the nature of the community response to the AIDS epidemic. Peter Arno (economics) and Robert Hughes (organizational behavior/sociology) compared New York City and San Francisco's local policy responses to HIV and AIDS. Peter Arno also studied the contributions of the voluntary non-profit sector in San Francisco. Jane Zones (sociology) also produced a study on the responses of individuals that they were informed about the results of their HTLV-III antibody tests.

The project was under the direction of Philip R. Lee, M.D., Director of the IHPS, and Patricia E. Franks was the Project Coordinator. Three members of the Department of Public Health were directly involved in the program: Dr. David Werdegar, Director of Health; Jeffery Amory, Coordinator of the AIDS Activity Office; and Dean Echenberg, Director of Communicable Disease Control. The faculty of the UCSF AIDS Clinical Research Center, directed by Dr. John Ziegler, Professor of Medicine and Director of Education at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco, also played a key role in the project.

The objectives of the AIDS Resource Program were:

(1)to provide information and education about the comprehensive HIV service system in San Francisco to individuals and groups from communities throughout the country to enable them to apply lessons learned in San Francisco to their own institutions, agencies, and communities;

(2)to enhance the capacity of service agencies in the community including the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, VNA/Hospice of San Francisco, and the Shanti Project, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and UCSF to meet the needs of individuals and groups seeking information about HIV programs in San Francisco.

To meet these objectives the AIDS Resource Program preformed five Project activities:

(1)development of educational materials describing San Francisco's HIV programs for use in self- or small-group instruction and for distribution;

(2)development of seminars, training sessions, and continuing education programs for physicians, nurses, dentists, and public health administrators on the organization, financing, and delivery of health and social services for persons with HIV, using San Francisco as a model, but including information on other service programs;

(3)coordination of visits and technical assistance for health professionals, health care administrators, social service agency directors, health policymakers, and community leaders;

(4)detailed analysis of HIV health and social services policies and programs, including cost studies; and

(5)dissemination of information and analyses to public officials, nonprofit agency providers, health professionals, and community leaders throughout the country.

When the AIDS Resource Program ended on December 31, 1988, information about the HIV epidemic had grown to a point where it was no longer practical to clip and catalogue newspaper, journal and magazine articles. Also other non-profit or for-profit groups were producing newsletters and weekly and monthly compendia of information.

In addition, many of the community-based organizations to which AIDS Resource Program staff had provided technical assistance and information had become established with their own staff and special service areas.

However, research into cost and policy issues related to the HIV epidemic remains one of 12 areas of emphasis listed on the IHPS web-site in 2005 with two of the Institute's faculty listing HIV/AIDS as a current research area.