The Foundation conducts research concerning the relationship between entertainment media and health, with a special focus on children and media. The purpose of the research is to provide data to help inform policymakers, journalists, the research community, healthcare providers, the media industry, and the public.

Major research projects include such topics as how teens use the Internet for health information; the amount of time children of all ages spend watching TV, playing video games, using computers, and reading; sexual messages on television; how health policy issues are portrayed on TV’s medical dramas; what viewers learn from health information in entertainment shows; the role of media in childhood obesity; and the impact of media-based public health campaigns. The Foundation also studies public policies on related media topics, including public service advertising on television, TV ratings, the V-Chip, and the impact of Internet filtering.

Program for the Study of Media and Health Publications

Children, Health, and the Media: Fact Sheet SeriesAccess a series of fact sheets that pull together the most relevant research on such issues as TV violence, teens online, media ratings, and children and video games.

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The Foundation’s work in HIV/AIDS policy seeks to provide the latest information, research, and analysis on the major domestic and global HIV/AIDS policy issues. This includes analysis and monitoring of: key epidemic trends, global and domestic spending on HIV/AIDS, the major programs that provide prevention, care, and treatment to people at risk for and living with HIV/AIDS, public opinion about HIV/AIDS, and highlighting the impact of the epidemic on those populations and regions of the U.S. and the world that have been most affected, including young people, women, and minority communities.

The Foundation is also engaged in many other HIV-related activities, including:

• Public education campaigns with media partners
• loveLife, a public education campaign in South Africa
• Journalist training program and mini-fellowships for HIV/AIDS reporting

HIV Policy Publications

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The Health Care Marketplace Project provides information and analysis about the health care market, including trends in health insurance, health care costs, and health care services. The Project focuses specifically on trends in employer-sponsored health insurance; how health care costs affect individuals and employers; the prescription drug industry, including spending, utilization, and advertising; private health insurance, including industry trends, consumer protections, and the individual insurance market; malpractice insurance; and analysis of policy proposals relating to health insurance reform, including using the tax system to subsidize the purchase of private health insurance.

The Health Care Marketplace Project Publications

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The Foundation partners with media organizations and other organizations in both the U.S. and internationally to develop multi-faceted public education campaigns on important health issues. A particular focus of the Foundation’s Entertainment Media Partnerships is on reaching young people with information about HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Our media partnerships combine targeted public service messages with longer-form special programming or editorial and other forms of outreach. Free informational resources are provided through toll-free hotlines and/or websites that reach millions of young people. The Foundation works collaboratively with its media partners providing expert substantive guidance on all products.

The Foundation’s decade-long work in this field includes ongoing partnerships with many of the leading media companies in this country: KNOW HIV/AIDS with Viacom and the CBS Corporation; think:hiv and think:sexual health with MTV(and Staying Alive with MTV International); Rap it Up with BET; and Enterate/Protegate with Univision.

Internationally, the Foundation is working in Africa, the Caribbean, India and Russia to help develop national and regional coalitions of media companies to address HIV/AIDS. In 2004, we joined with UNAIDS to launch the Global Media AIDS Initiative (GMAI), a call to action issued by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to urge the world’s media leaders to contribute their vast assets to fighting the global pandemic.

More Information on Individual Entertainment Partnerships

This chartpack provides a snapshot of racial/ethnic differences in Medicare beneficiaries? prescription drug coverage, use, and spending. It examines patterns separately for beneficiaries under age 65 and 65+. The summary discusses the relevance of the key findings to the current policy debates about prescription drug coverage.

Chartpack (.pdf)

Kaiser/HRET Survey: 2002 State Employee Health Plans

State employee health plans provided coverage for 3.4 million state government employees in 2002. The Kaiser/HRET Survey: 2002 State Employee Health Plans finds that premiums for state employee health plans increased 12.8% in 2002, similar to national averages. It also finds that state employee plan premiums are slightly more expensive than the national average and that state workers’ contributions are less expensive than the average U.S. firm.

The Kaiser/HRET Survey: 2002 State Employee Health Plans is a supplement to the annual Kaiser/HRET Employer Health Benefits Survey, and offers an overview of health insurance practices among state employee plans and U.S. firms.

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• Link to Kaiser/HRET Employer Health Benefits Survey

Low-income assistance is a key feature of the Medicare prescription drug proposals passed by the House (H.R. 1) and the Senate (S.1). The attached tables present national and state-level data on the number of low-income elderly and disabled Medicare beneficiaries who may be eligible for additional assistance, based on the income eligibility thresholds specified in the House and Senate proposals (135%, 150%, and 160% of poverty).

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This report presents information on the number of children enrolled in SCHIP for each state, for specific months from 1998 to December 2002. As of December 2002, the SCHIP program covered 3.7 million low-income children. An increase of 280,000 children during 2002.

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The latest survey of eligibility rules and enrollment and renewal procedures in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in their Medicaid and SCHIP programs for children and parents. It reflects changes states implemented between January 2002 and April 2003. The current survey also solicited information about states premiums and cost-sharing practices.

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• Enrolling Children and Families in Health Coverage: The Promise of Doing More (50 State Survey as of January 2002)

>>All 50-State Children’s Health Coverage Reports

This publication provides state-by-state enrollment information and identifies national trends from the data. The report focuses on the five-year period from June 1997 to June 2002. In June 2002,total Medicaid enrollment in the United States reached over 38.1 million persons. This was an increase of nearly 3.2 million Medicaid enrollees from June 2001, or anannual increase of 9.2 percent.

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