A New ‘HIP’ Public
“Strengthening public interest in low-income Hoosiers' health and the shared responsibility of supporting continuous health coverage for better wellness and care”
Professors: David Craig & Pamela Napier,
Graduate students: Amrita Datta & Luis Garcia
About the project
"A New HIP Public" is a community-engaged project selected for the 2020 Charles R. Bantz Community Fellowship. HIP is the acronym for the Healthy Indiana Plan, which is Indiana's Medicaid expansion that provides Medicaid coverage to low-income Hoosiers (Indianapolis residents).
This research project was conducted to engage members of urban Indianapolis communities to chronicle attitudes and experiences regarding the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP). The research team listened to firsthand users— both HIP members and HIP-eligible people—who can speak to the program's effectiveness in securing health care and promoting wellness for people living in health-challenged neighborhoods.
First, we engaged with MDWISE, who contributed their knowledge about the process, challenges, and current efforts to bring new members to HIP Plus.
As one of the four Managed Care Entities (MCEs) that have contracts with the State of Indiana to manage the health benefits for members of the Healthy Indiana Plan, they brought a critical understanding of how the system works and gave us clues about how to strengthen certain aspects of it.
The HealthyMe community allowed us to understand the importance of sharing and collaborating to empower neighbors and connect them to resources for their health and wellness. We also learned some of the most effective ways to communicate the benefits of HIP coverage and overall aspects of people's health and wellness.
As one of the most diverse religious communities across central Indiana, the Center for Interfaith Cooperation gave us a rich understanding of developing engaging messaging, communication channels, and feedback for the project's conceptual directions.
Their expertise was vital in developing communication artifacts with the possibility to reach the majority of the audience.
Finally, during the Spring 2021 semester, we collaborated with the Visual Communication Design and Religious Studies programs to develop the first version of campaign materials and health and wellness visuals.
The collaboration was fruitful as it allowed both sides to understand better religious communities' efforts and the importance of good communication in complex systems such as HIP.
After all sessions and feedback from each group, we developed three conceptual directions to move forward in the project's future stages.
Collectively Investing in Health and Wellness
During our research, we identified that large-collective goals are critical to improving the low-income community's health conditions. The creation of networks and ensuring that all voices can be heard were repeatedly mentioned as essential aspects of this 'collective effort.'
Educating the broader community about the WHY of a 'collective investment' in health and wellness is the key finding for this conceptual direction. Focusing on disseminating information about these aspects and how HIP can play a role in this is extremely important for this 'collective effort.'
More specifically, making people AWARE of the importance of improving the low-income community's health conditions and the power of "networks" driven by collaborative values is an important aspect to develop engaging messaging and increase the chance of reaching out to all members of the community.
Here are some quotes from our participants during participatory sessions. These serve as a starting point to develop messaging in future stages of the project, but they are also a representation of the problem space and people's perception. In this case, we have quotes that discuss the importance of accessing health services to improve life quality and how health should be a primary-collective need.
HIP Plus: Simple and Clear
The second conceptual direction focused on making the HIP information easy and clear to understand. During our research, it was clear that low enrollment can be caused partly by people not understanding benefits and the process to enroll in the plan. The simplification could include the general information about the plan, the services, and the frequently asked questions.
As the main description indicates, if we prioritize messaging about benefits and simplify communication, there is a chance of making more people interested in the plan.
In this case, quotes give us a better picture of what people said during sessions that talk about the previously mentioned issue. For example, people do not understand which drugs are covered, what insurance options exist, or simply provide an easy and effective way to ask questions.
Finally, channels in this concept are mostly sources from which people gather information before deciding what plan to chose. The community resource part, for example, identified that people usually ask friends or people in their community about plans. This connects to the first concept of collective efforts, as if 'everybody' is informed, it can help solve other points of tension.
Empowering low-income Hoosiers
The third and final concept focused on empowerment. Empowerment is seen as giving low-income Hoosiers the information and tools to care for their own health and wellness. We concentrate on how relations with themselves and other people can help them take care of their health and wellness—additionally, giving low-income Hoosiers the means to connect to social services and support systems from the community.
In the quotes, we can see how participants compared good health to monetary value and dignity for the community. Here, we show how the concept of 'strengthening' the community was mentioned as a critical aspect to make everyone thrive.
Finally, in this case, communication channels were more related to community resources, workshops, and even sessions where people get together.