Kaiser Family Foundation

Who We Are

A leader in health policy analysis, health journalism and communication, the Kaiser Family Foundation is dedicated to filling the need for trusted, independent information on the major health issues facing our nation and its people. Kaiser is a non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the U.S., as well as the U.S. role in global health policy. Unlike grant-making foundations, Kaiser develops and runs its own research and communications programs, sometimes in partnership with other non-profit research organizations or major media companies.

We serve as a non-partisan source of facts, information, and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the public. Our product is information, always provided free of charge — from the most sophisticated policy research, to basic facts and numbers, to information young people can use to improve their health or elderly people can use to understand their Medicare benefits.

The Kaiser Family Foundation is not associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries.

The Foundation has many programs and a complex organizational chart, but essentially we do three things:

We are a major producer of policy analysis and research ourselves. We serve as a trusted and independent expert voice in a U.S. health system dominated by commercial, political, and ideological interests; a place where people can turn for unbiased and non-partisan analysis, basic facts, and explanation of the biggest domestic and global health policy issues and public opinion shaping them. This is the role for which we are best known in the U.S.

We are a “go to” clearinghouse of news and information for the health policy community. We operate a large-scale health news and information service on the Web and a series of specialized websites, featuring both data we produce as well as the latest and best data from others, to help to ensure that everyone has the same kind of information and access to events as insiders do. We also make a major effort to assist journalists and news organizations working to inform the public about complex health policy and public health issues.

Kaiser develops and helps run large-scale public health information campaigns in the U.S. and around the world. These currently focus on HIV/AIDS, with an emphasis on reaching young people. Kaiser campaigns are based on a new model of public service programming pioneered by the Foundation —direct partnerships with major media companies and a comprehensive “multi-platform” communications strategy that goes far beyond traditional “PSAs.” Current partners in the U.S. include MTV, BET, Univision, Viacom/CBS, and Fox. Together, Kaiser's campaigns reach tens of millions of people annually, and have won multiple Emmy and Peabody awards in recent years.