Poor health outcomes and the soaring cost of health care in the United States create an urgent need to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the nation’s health care system. Our health care system has become highly compartmentalized and often fails vulnerable patients, particularly those with multiple chronic health problems, in addition to straining government resources. Health care reform has created new opportunities in health care access and health care delivery, but developing more effective strategies to sustainably and reliably improve health outcomes remains an urgent need. This need is especially great for strategies that can address the needs of underserved populations, including persons who have lower incomes, are homeless or unstably housed, or have criminal justice system involvement.  

Through its Equitable Access to Holistic Health Care portfolio, the University of Chicago Health Lab seeks to improve the nation’s health care systems and address these challenges by implementing promising solutions to issues facing low-income or otherwise vulnerable people within the larger health care system and helping to scale programs and policies that improve health outcomes and address systemic barriers to achieving health equity.