Hep ElimiNATION:  Hepatitis Policy Project

About

The O’Neill Institute launched Hep ElimiNATION in January 2022 with consultation from the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable (NVHR) and the Center for Health Law & Policy Innovation (CHLPI) at Harvard Law School. The project provided a snapshot of select policies and programmatic strategies relevant to building capacity for viral hepatitis elimination across the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. This advocacy tool aimed to inform policymakers, public health leaders, and communities about several essential pieces of the elimination puzzle and aimed to catalyze elimination planning efforts in pursuit of the World Health Organization’s goal to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030.

HepELIMINATION was completed in August 2023.

Our Work

Hep ElimiNATION has provided a fascinating vantage point to witness states’ progress in developing elimination plans, collaborative networks, and communication and transparency about elimination efforts. Since the project began, eight jurisdictions have published new hepatitis elimination plans, three have released updated plans to their existing ones, and 14 have formed new collaborative groups.

This project was conducted alongside dedicated advocates, clinicians, government staff, and people with lived experience working tirelessly to care for their communities. Despite these significant efforts, numerous challenges have persisted across jurisdictions, including limited funding, bottlenecks in data and surveillance infrastructure, and residual policy constraints on syringe service programs and other harm reduction efforts. 

In the absence of robust data, assessing viral hepatitis elimination capacity is a tall order. For example, it is difficult to correlate qualitative indicators about policies and programs with quantitative measures in progress towards elimination – like rates of treatment initiation or reductions in incidence of new infections. Additionally, an assessment that uses publicly available information can fail to capture the breadth of elimination planning and programs. 

We encourage future efforts to explore methodological approaches that facilitate more dynamic modeling of the impact of various elimination strategies on core outcomes and health equity.

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Resources

Final Reports

By States and Territories

AL | AK | AZ | AR | CA | CO | CT | DE | DC | FL | GA | HI | ID | IL | IN | IA | KS | KY | LA | ME | MD | MA | MI | MN | MS | MO | MT | NE | NV | NH | NJ | NM | NY | NC | ND | OH | OK | OR | PA | PR | RI | SC | SD | TN | TX | UT | VT | VA | WA | WV | WI | WY |

Toolkit

In addition to the jurisdiction assessments, Hep ElimiNATION created toolkit modules and an extensive resource list to further assist jurisdictions’ elimination efforts. The modules provide templates and guidance for building an elimination collaboration engaging people with living experience and other stakeholders in elimination efforts, conducting collaboration meetings, and how to approach budget advocacy to support viral hepatitis elimination efforts.