Our Background

The Health Equity, Law, and Policy Research (HELPR) Lab is a vehicle for health policy and equity research in the University of Virginia's Department of Public Health Sciences - a hub for leadership in research methods that advance health policy and law, clinical care, patient outcomes, and population health. Led by Dr. Cameron Webb, Director of the Health Policy Program, and a team of student researchers, the HELPR lab produces research on the most pressing health policy issues to contribute to critical conversations as they unfold. Since the launch in January 2018 by Dr. Cameron Webb, the Health Equity, Law and Policy Research Lab team have been synthesizing knowledge from the growing health policy evidence base to improve health and health care for all Americans. Informed by his time working on health policy in the White House, Dr. Cameron Webb sought to develop a lab that would conduct research on the most pressing health policy issues so that our work can be part of critical conversations as they unfold. Since the launch, the HELPR Lab has initiated over a dozen health policy and health equity research projects. Our work ranges from Medicaid innovation to reducing health care costs, social determinants of health and health care utilization ...and so much more.