Systems for Action (S4A) is a national Signature Research Program office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that aims to discover and apply new evidence about ways of aligning the delivery and financing systems across the public health, medical and social services sectors. Through periodic funding opportunities, S4A funds research on cross-system initiatives. Internally, S4A conducts research on multi-sector population health activities using our National Longitudinal Survey of Public Health Systems (NALSYS) dataset. In partnership with the Technical Assistance Collaborative and Health Services Research Institute, the Systems Alignment Innovation Hub was developed in 2022 to assist practice-based organizations in systems alignment work.
Through all these efforts, the S4A program seeks to identify system innovations, particularly system-level drivers of cross-sector collaboration and integration across health services and systems.
Glen Mays | Director of Systems for Action
Glen Mays is professor and chair of the Department of Health Systems, Management and Policy in the Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus. His research seeks to understand and solve coordination problems within and across public health, healthcare, and social service systems, with a focus on the health and economic implications of coordination. A graduate of Brown University, Dr. Mays earned Ph.D. and M.P.H. degrees in health policy and administration from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in health economics at Harvard Medical School. Prior to joining Colorado, he served on the faculty at the University of Kentucky, University of Arkansas, and Mathematica Policy Research.