Mentor
Brad Wright
Participation year
2016
Abstract

The focus of this project is :1) investigate the relationship between the party control and the distribution of public funds in the Federal Qualified Health Centers. 2) identify any relationship between the political ideologies of states with the funds that are distributed in the country with the exchange for political favors. 3) observe the evaluation criteria that consider the allocation of funds among underserved areas that receive more aid than others. The FQHCs include all organizations receiving grants under Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act (PHC). They must facilitate an underserved area or population, offer a sliding fee scale, provide comprehensive services, have an ongoing quality assurance program, and have a governing board of directors. The criteria to receive federal aids are established by the governing board that monitors the allocation of funds. There have been several theories of distribution polices concerning the distribution of government funds. In this research we used a longitudinal method to observe changes in the allocation of funds chronologically in relation to government administrations. The information on the grantees awards winners was obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services databases. This was used to make a quantitative assessment of every state that received aid. In the data analysis we obtained the relationship between ideologies of the winning states and the amount of funds allocated to them. Because this is a longitudinal study, we can only present preliminary data.

Carmen Soto Diaz
Education
University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez