Eugene Lewit

Eugene Lewit, PhD, is a Consulting Professor of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University.  His current research interests focus on implementation of the ACA and it’s impact on children and families.  He also consults with philanthropies on strategy and evaluation. 

From 2009 to 2013, Lewit was Program Officer and Manager in the Children, Families, and Communities Program at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation where he managed a multimillion-dollar grant program designed to help bring health insurance to all children.  From 1999 to 2008, Lewit was Senior Program Manager for Heath and Economic Security and from 1991- 1999, Director, Research and Grants, Economics at the Packard Foundation.  He managed large grant programs focused on children’s health care quality, poverty, welfare reform, and family economic security.  In this capacity, he helped launch and develop key organizations working on children’s health care quality including the Vermont Oxford Network and the National Institute for Children’s Health Care Quality as well as seeding the dissemination of the California County Children’s Health Initiatives from Santa Clara County to 28 other counties in California.

Lewit is trained as a health economist and until 2010 was a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.  With his NBER colleagues, he published several seminal articles on tobacco taxation and other tobacco control policies.  He has consulted with the WHO and World Bank on tobacco policy in developing countries.  Lewit has also published on grantmaking, children’s health and health care policy, and poverty and income security for children and families and was an editor and regular contributor to The Future of Children.

In 2013, Lewit received the Academy Award from the National Academy for State Health Policy for “outstanding national leadership in improving health coverage for children,” and the Champion for Children award from the First Focus Campaign for Children.  From 2011 to 2014, Lewit served on the Board of Directors of Grantmakers In Health.