National Evaluation of the 2nd Generation of Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG 2.0 National Evaluation)

2015-2025

Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG 2.0) Logo

In 2015, OPRE launched a comprehensive evaluation of the second round of grants awarded under the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program. The HPOG 2.0 National Evaluation is rigorously assessing the HPOG programs administered by the non-tribal grantees awarded grants in 2015. The 27 non-tribal grantees operated 38 HPOG programs across 17 states. 

The HPOG 2.0 National Evaluation includes several key components: 

  • The impact evaluation is randomly assigning eligible participants to either a treatment group that has access to HPOG services or a control group that does not have access to HPOG but can receive other services available in the community (“business as usual”) to assess the impacts of the HPOG programs. 
  • The descriptive evaluation includes implementation, outcomes, and systems studies and will help interpret findings from the impact study. The descriptive study also includes in-depth qualitative interviews with a small sample of HPOG study participants. 
  • The cost benefit analyses will assess the costs and benefits of a standard HPOG program. 

Data sources for all three components of the National Evaluation include program data, administrative data from the National Directory of New Hires and National Student Clearinghouse, and participant follow-up surveys at approximately 15 and 36 months after random assignment. A long-term follow-up survey will be developed and fielded approximately 66 months after random assignment through the HPOG 2.0 National Evaluation Long-term Follow-up Study contract.  

In 2021, OPRE funded a 15-month follow-up survey of participants who enrolled in HPOG after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This effort will support assessments of the effectiveness of the HPOG 2.0 Program before and after the pandemic. 

This work is being led by Abt Associates, in partnership with MEF Policy Associates, the Urban Institute, Insight Policy Research, and NORC at the University of Chicago. 

Point(s) of contact: Nicole Constance, Li Wang, and Lauren Deutsch. 

This study is registered on the Open Science Framework under the title National Evaluation of the 2nd Generation of Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG 2.0 National Evaluation)  Visit disclaimer page 

Information collections related to this project have been reviewed and approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under OMB #0970-0462. Related materials are available at the National and Tribal Evaluation of the 2nd Generation of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants Visit disclaimer page on RegInfo.gov. 

The most currently approved documents are accessible by clicking on the ICR Ref. No. with the most recent conclusion date. To access the information collections (E.g. interviews, surveys, protocols), click on View Information Collection (IC) List. Click on View Supporting Statement and Other Documents to access other supplementary documents. 

Related Resources

Summarize findings from OPRE’s HPOG 2.0 Systems Study to identify the extent to which systems activities, as implemented by HPOG program operators and their partners, may have influenced the local system.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with healthcare occupational training participants, this brief reviews their considerations when balancing caregiving responsibilities with their training.

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, HPOG 2.0 programs (which train participants for in-demand healthcare jobs) adapted their procedures to continue activities while protecting their staff, students, and partners.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with healthcare occupational training participants, this brief reviews their considerations when making occupational choices.

This brief presents insights from in-depth, in-person interviews with HPOG 2.0 participants in career pathways programs, describes their experiences navigating career pathways, and suggests implications for career pathways program practice and for evaluations of career pathways programs.

This brief reports local impacts in the short term for the 38 programs that are part of the HPOG 2.0 impact evaluation.

This review of the labor market for healthcare workers after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic intends to inform the interpretation of results from forthcoming impact analyses of the HPOG program and the development future investments in healthcare workforce programs.

Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG 2.0) Intermediate-Term Impact Report 

This report is to summarize the healthcare training, employment, earnings, and career pathways outcomes of HPOG 2.0 program participants.

Running from 2015 to 2021, the second round of the Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF’s) Health Profession Opportunity Grants Program (“HPOG 2.0”) funded grantees to provide support services and healthcare occupational training according to career pathways principles.  ACF’s Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) is administering a robust evaluation of the HPOG 2.0 effort: the National and Tribal Evaluation of the 2nd Generation of Health Profession Opportunity Grants.  The National Evaluation of 27 non-Tribal grantees is comparing outcomes and impacts for program applicants randomly assigned access to the grantees’ HPOG 2.0 programs (treatment group) versus those randomly assigned access only to services available elsewhere in the community (control group).

In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, disrupting American lives, labor markets, and local HPOG 2.0 programs.  To better understand how COVID changed outcomes and impacts for HPOG 2.0 study members relative to the pre-COVID period, OPRE contracted with Abt Associates to conduct the HPOG 2.0 National Evaluation COVID-Cohort Study.

This Analysis Plan describes the methodology for answering the study’s key research questions.  The document also improves the transparency and replicability of study findings by committing the research team to make consequential decisions prior to inspecting estimates of program impacts.  Most methods and operationalizations of outcomes measures continue from earlier HPOG 2.0 impact analyses and are described in previous Analysis Plans.  This Analysis Plan therefore primarily focuses on specifying analytic methods and presentation strategies specific to this study’s understanding of how COVID shifted the HPOG 2.0 program.

Explore the HPOG National Evaluation Implementation Study Report which describes the variety of programs, program components, implementation strategies, the context in which programs operate, and program participants’ characteristics, experiences, and engagement.

The Systems Study captures the perspectives of 15 program operators and their partners on the extent to which systems activities of the HPOG 2.0 programs—collaboration, improved access to and quality of training and services, employer engagement, data sharing, and sustainability—improved how their systems functioned.

This research explores the prevalence of training patterns that are likely to lead to jobs that “pay well” and how those training patterns vary across several dimensions: available years of HPOG federal program funding, enrollee characteristics, and funding round (HPOG 1.0 vs. HPOG 2.0).

A large experimental evaluation of the second round of HPOG found significant short-term impacts (15 months after randomization) on educational progress for the low-income adults served in 27 local programs across the country.

This document describes the Analysis Plan for the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG 2.0) Impact Evaluation Intermediate-Term Impact Report, which will focus on the measuring the impact of the HPOG program on study members at 36 months after random assignment.

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program is designed to provide education and training to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other low-income individuals for occupations in the healthcare field that pay well and are expected to either experience labor shortages or be in high demand. A National Evaluation of 27 grants awarded in 2015 as part of the second round of HPOG grants (HPOG 2.0) is currently underway...

This document presents an analysis plan for the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) to be conducted as part of the National Evaluation of the Second Generation of Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG 2.0) Program. The National Evaluation includes 27 nontribal grantees funded in 2015.

Findings from the CBA—how the social costs (mostly program spending) compare with the social benefits (mostly earnings gains)—will be important to understanding the value of programs such as HPOG....

The HPOG Program is designed to deliver high-quality training in the health professions to eligible individuals. A National Evaluation of 27 grants awarded in 2015 as part of the second round of HPOG grants (HPOG 2.0) is currently underway. The National Evaluation will include an Impact Evaluation of the Program’s impacts on participants and its costs and benefits, as well as a Descriptive Evaluation of the implementation, outcomes, and local service delivery systems of the grants...

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program is designed to deliver high-quality training in the health professions to eligible individuals. A National Evaluation of 27 grants awarded in 2015 as part of the second round of HPOG grants (HPOG 2.0) is currently underway. The National Evaluation will include an Impact Evaluation of the Program’s impacts on participants and its costs and benefits, as well as a Descriptive Evaluation of the implementation, outcomes, and local service delivery systems of the grants.

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program awards grants to organizations that provide education and training to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other low-income individuals for healthcare occupations that pay well and are expected to either experience labor shortages or be in high...

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program awards grants to organizations that provide education and training to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other low-income individuals for healthcare occupations that pay well and are in high demand. A National Evaluation of 27 grants awarded in 2015...

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program is designed to deliver high-quality training in the health professions to eligible individuals. A National Evaluation of 27 grants awarded in 2015 as part of the second round of HPOG grants (HPOG 2.0) is currently underway. The National Evaluation will include a Descriptive Evaluation of the implementation, outcomes, and local service delivery systems of the grants as well as an Impact Evaluation of the grants’ impacts...