Ryan White HIV/AIDS Programs Part A Supplemental Funding- Feasibility Study of Proposed Allocation of Funds Responsive to Need
Client: HIV/AIDS Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA HAB)
Mission Analytics partnered with WRMA, Inc. to serve as a contractor to HRSA HAB. Part A of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 provides assistance to EMAs and Transitional Grant Areas (TGAs)—locales that are most severely affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In addition to formula funds, HRSA HAB funds grantees with Part A supplemental awards on an annual basis. The method for evaluating need for this supplemental funding involved reviewing and scoring applications submitted by grantees demonstrating the need for additional funding. Historical data related to this process shows that Part A grantees, all of which are established and longstanding recipients of Part A funds, uniformly score within a very limited point range, resulting in proportional funding with little differentiation in regard to absolute need. This project identified for a HRSA/CDC workgroup an empirical, quantifiable framework or formula for awarding supplemental funding to Part A grantees.
To achieve the goals of the project, the Mission Analytics team developed an electronic database that includes historical funding patterns, alternative measures of unmet need, data quality measures, performance measures, and cost measures. In addition to implementing it as a statistical model, Mission Analytics built an Excel tool to allow HRSA HAB to experiment with alternative strategies.