In 2023, the Foundation released a statewide Health Equity Action Plan, which proposed a vision and framework for achieving a racially and ethnically equitable health care delivery system in Massachusetts. To advance the Action Plan and as a step towards more coordination and cross-system learning among Massachusetts stakeholders, the Foundation, in collaboration with Manatt Health, developed the Massachusetts Health Equity Initiative Inventory and accompanying brief explainer. The Inventory is an interactive resource in Microsoft Excel that contains over 140 interventions and programs being implemented to address racial, ethnic, and linguistic inequities in Massachusetts’ health care delivery system. Each initiative featured in the Inventory includes a brief description and information on outcomes, where available. Users can sort initiatives by various categories, including:

• clinical area of focus, 
• population, 
• geographic region, 
• funding source, and 
• type of implementing entity.

The Inventory was developed as a tool for organizations across the health care delivery system in Massachusetts looking to start or advance their health equity work, offering examples and promising practices of initiatives across various areas of focus. It can also be used by other stakeholders, including state agencies, policymakers, and funders to inform programmatic and funding priorities. 

As organizations adopt and update their health equity initiatives, the Foundation will periodically update the Inventory and will keep the most up-to-date version on its website. If you would like to submit an initiative or update information related to an existing initiative, you can do so via this form.

On Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024, the Foundation hosted a webinar on the Inventory. During the webinar the speakers discussed the impetus for the Inventory, shared key takeaways and lessons learned from compiling this resource, and highlighted how it may be used by organizations in various phases of their health equity journey. The webinar also featured a demonstration of how to use this interactive tool. Click here to access a recording of the webinar and a copy of the webinar slides.

Massachusetts, with support from the federal government, has implemented several policy and programmatic changes intended to promote continued access to health care services and health insurance coverage during the COVID-19 public health emergency. This table serves as a centralized resource that documents and describes the policy, regulatory, and administrative actions pertaining to MassHealth, Health Connector programs, and the Health Safety Net. This resource is intended to be used by advocates, enrollment assisters, and other stakeholders to assist consumers in identifying options to protect their access to coverage and health care services. Since policies and programs are changing frequently in the current environment, this resource will be regularly updated.

Stay up to date on changes to this resource by signing up for our email list.

This brief and accompanying set of tables serve as an update to previously released reports on the geography of uninsurance in Massachusetts. Relying on newly released data for 2013-2017 from the American Community Survey (ACS), this brief uses three measures of uninsurance – uninsurance rate, number of uninsured, and concentration of uninsured – to identify high-uninsurance communities in the state. This brief also provides new information on socioeconomic characteristics of high-uninsurance communities and their uninsured residents to further inform strategies for targeted outreach efforts. Among other key findings, by looking at the concentration of uninsured residents (i.e., the number of uninsured per square mile of land area) to identify high-uninsurance communities, we find that the uninsured are concentrated in a relatively small number of communities, primarily in and around Boston.

Included with this release is a set of detailed tables available for download that provide estimates of the rate and number of uninsured for all persons, children (ages 0-18), and adults (ages 19-64), by various geographic units, including Congressional districts, counties, cities and towns, and census tracts.

The fourth edition of the tracking tool provides a detailed description of key components of Chapter 224, highlighting the progress the state has made in its implementation of the law as of November 2017. This tool is designed for policymakers, advocates, and other stakeholders who wish to track when and how state leaders have addressed policy issues pertaining to Chapter 224.

This year’s release includes two distinct versions of the tracking tool: 1) An abbreviated version that focuses on progress the state has made since September 2016; and 2) A more comprehensive version which documents progress the state has made in implementing the law since its passage in 2012.

If you have any suggested additions or corrections, please email [email protected].

Using data from the 2011-2015 five-year file of the American Community Survey, this brief and set of detailed tables provide estimates of local uninsurance rates in Massachusetts. The appendices provide data on the estimates of the number and rate of uninsurance by the following categories: all persons, males, females, children (ages 0-17), non-elderly adults (ages 18-64), and elderly (ages 65+). Each appendix provides these results for a different geographic unit, including large areas such as congressional districts and smaller areas such as school districts.

The third edition provides a detailed description of key components of Chapter 224, highlighting the progress the state has made in its implementation of the law as of September 2016. This tool is designed for policymakers, advocates, and other stakeholders who wish to track when and how state leaders have addressed policy issues pertaining to Chapter 224.

This year’s release includes two distinct versions of the tracking tool: 1) An abbreviated version that focuses on progress the state has made since August 2015; and 2) A more comprehensive version which documents progress the state has made in implementing the law since its passage in 2012.

This tracking tool is a living document and will be updated annually. If you have any suggested additions or corrections, please email [email protected].

This updated edition of the tracking tool provides a detailed description of key components of Chapter 224, highlighting the progress the state has made in its implementation of the law as of August 2015. This tool is designed for policymakers, advocates, and other stakeholders who wish to track when and how state leaders have addressed policy issues pertaining to Chapter 224.

This tracking tool is a living document and will be updated annually. If you have any suggested additions or corrections, please email [email protected].

This brief and set of detailed tables, prepared by Sharon Long and Thomas Dimmock from the Urban Institute, provide estimates of the number and rate of uninsurance in Massachusetts by various geographic units ranging from congressional districts to counties to neighborhoods. The resource is based on the 2009 to 2013 five-year file of the American Community Survey (ACS), which included a sample of 140,001 people in Massachusetts.

The brief summarizes high level findings from the data and definitions for the geographic units of analysis. The appendices provide data on the estimates of the number and rate of uninsurance by the following categories: all persons, males, females, children (ages 0-17), non-elderly adults (ages 18-64), and elderly (ages 65+). Each appendix provides these results for 10 different geographic units ranging from congressional district to county to census tract.

An online, interactive guide to Chapter 288 of the Acts of 2010, Massachusetts' most recent health care cost containment law. This online tool includes full, up-to-date text, section-by-section summaries and links to relevant reports, commissions, state agencies and final regulations.

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Full text of Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006, as subsequently amended and revised, with links to relevant agencies, reports, and regulations.  

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