by Guest Author | Jul 16, 2025 | Policy
The Bowen Center for Health Workforce Research and Policy’s latest brief offers a compelling look at the evolving landscape of online education within Indiana University’s mental and behavioral health (MBH) programs.
The brief evaluates how online learning is shaping student success and workforce development across Indiana. With a focus on enrollment trends, geographic reach, academic performance, and degree completion, the findings underscore the growing role of online programs in meeting the state’s urgent need for qualified MBH professionals.
The brief also highlights how these programs are attracting more Indiana residents and rural students, offering flexible pathways to education while supporting in-state workforce retention.
Read more below.
by Guest Author | Jul 16, 2025 | Policy
At the Bowen Center, we’re proud to collaborate with partners across the state who are driving meaningful change in health workforce development. Our long-standing partnership with the Indiana Department of Health includes providing administrative support to the new Health Workforce Council, an initiative focused on building a more coordinated and responsive health workforce strategy for Indiana.
In this guest blog, Brooke Mullen, Executive Director of the Health Workforce Council, shares how this effort is shaping the future of the health workforce in our state.
In 2024, Indiana launched the Health Workforce Council as a partnership between the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) and the Family & Social Services Administration (FSSA). The council is the result of a recommendation from then-Gov. Eric J. Holcomb’s Public Health Commission.
The council, chaired by State Health Commissioner Lindsay Weaver, MD, FACEP, brings together state government representatives and other stakeholders who are focused on practical and innovative solutions to grow the health workforce capacity of our state.
I have the privilege of serving as executive director for the council, joining IDOH in November 2023 for this role. I have worked in state government for 16 years, previously with the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) and the Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA).
The council’s mission is to create and lead an integrated and intentional framework for strengthening the health workforce within our state. To do this, the council works to coordinate initiatives and leverage existing programs throughout the state, seeks to expand recruitment, training, placement, and retention of health workforce into areas of need, and to identify and collaborate on incentive programs and strategies to target those areas of need.
In establishing the council, our approach was to bring together a group of individuals who could represent broad areas of subject matter expertise and experience themselves but also have a larger network to include in some of these important conversations. The council is comprised of members of the executive and legislative branches of state government, but primarily represents clinicians, educators, and employers throughout our state. Our intention is to get a “boots on the ground” perspective of experiences.
During the spring of 2024, IDOH, in conjunction with the Bowen Center for Health Workforce Policy and Research, hosted a day-long Health Workforce Summit and conducted a Health Workforce Survey with stakeholders representing more than 45 organizations, including healthcare employers, educators, professional associations, and state government. Through these initiatives, priority topics were identified and include behavioral and mental health, obstetrics, and family medicine and pediatrics.
The council meets on a quarterly basis, and meetings are open to the public. For more information, check out our website at https://www.in.gov/health/directory/office-of-the-commissioner/health-workforce-council/.
by Guest Author | Jun 18, 2025 | Data
The Bowen Center for Health Workforce Research and Policy’s latest Indiana oral health data report offers an overview of the state’s dentists and dental hygienists. It uses licensure data and survey responses to examine workforce demographics, education, practice settings, and geographic distribution. It also explores emerging trends in service delivery and access to care across Indiana.
The full findings are in the report below and may have implications for health care planning, policy development, and community health initiatives.
by Guest Author | May 14, 2025 | News, Policy
The Bowen Center for Health Workforce Research and Policy is delighted to announce that our organization has received a significant grant to develop national recommendations for strengthening the behavioral health and substance use workforce.
The $592,338 award from the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE) will fund a comprehensive 50-state policy review and stakeholder engagement process aimed at creating a first-of-its-kind national framework for behavioral health paraprofessional roles.
Hannah Maxey, center, pictured at a Playbook Project stakeholder convening. | Photo by Daiyawn Smith/Dai in Dai Out Productions
“This framework aims to address the critical gap in service access for individuals suffering from opioid use disorder by recommending best practices for training, credentialing and reimbursement based on lessons learned from states with formalized roles,” said Bowen Center Director Hannah L. Maxey, PhD, MPH, RDH.
The grant was one of only four awarded through FORE’s Innovation Challenge Program, which supports new solutions to difficult issues related to the opioid and overdose crisis.
This initiative builds upon the Bowen Center’s Playbook for Enhancing Indiana’s Mental and Behavioral Health Workforce, published in 2024 with support from Lilly Endowment Inc., keeping the ball rolling on mental and behavioral health workforce research.
The Bowen Center will release more details about this exciting project in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned!
For more information, visit: https://medicine.iu.edu/news/2025/05/bowen-center-fore-grant-lilly-endowment
For more information about our past work on this topic, check out the Playbook project below or go to the project homepage. You can also see our full portfolio of past large-scale projects on our dedicated Portfolio page here.
by Guest Author | May 8, 2025 | Data, News, Policy, Reports
The Bowen Center for Health Workforce Research and Policy at Indiana University is pleased to share its interim report to the Indiana Department of Health covering activities from July 2024 through January 2025.
This report provides an overview of the Center’s efforts to support data-driven health workforce planning and policy across Indiana and highlights ongoing initiatives which focus on health workforce data collection, analysis, and stakeholder collaboration. The report also reflects the Center’s continued commitment to producing actionable insights and engaging key partners to inform health workforce development and decision-making.
Through its work, the Bowen Center aims to ensure that Indiana’s health workforce is aligned with the needs of communities statewide. This interim report is intended to provide transparency on progress to date. We invite you to review the full report below to learn more.
