Health Affairs

Editor’s note: For more on the state of prevention efforts and the impact of the cuts to the Prevention and Public Health Fund, see this Health Affairs Blog “Contributing Voices” post by Georges Benjamin and an additional post about a Health Policy Brief on the Fund. The Prevention and Public Health Fund, created by the... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: For more on the state of prevention efforts and the impact of the cuts to the Prevention and Public Health Fund, see this Health Affairs Blog “Contributing Voices” post by Jeffrey Levi and an additional post about a Health Policy Brief on the Fund. Two years ago with enactment of the Affordable Care... Read the rest of this entry »

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that 32 health care organizations from around the country had signed on to the new Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) initiative, part of a broader push to incentivize ACOs in the Affordable Care act. ACOs provide financial incentives for healthcare teams—including primary care physicians, specialists,... Read the rest of this entry »

David Colby, vice president of Research and Evaluation at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), has announced the lineup for RWJF’s Most Influential Research Articles of 2011. As it has done in past years, the foundation has listed 20 RWJF-funded articles across the broad spectrum of its program areas. The articles were selected based on... Read the rest of this entry »

The community development sector –a network of real estate developers, banks, city planners, and non-profit groups — has traditionally focused on promoting jobs, affordable housing and improved quality of life in low-income communities.  Now it is increasingly taking on the role of improving public health, and building healthier, more prosperous communities with nutritious food, clean... Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 8, Health Affairs will release its November 2011 issue, “Linking Community Development & Health.”  The issue explores the connection between improving the health of populations and undertaking efforts to raise incomes, employment and overall economic activity in low-income communities.  In addition to the community health material, the issue features a number of... Read the rest of this entry »

Uwe Reinhardt will speak at the release event for the November issue of Health Affairs. Reinhardt, the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton University and the author of an article in the issue, will offer a presentation titled “An All-Payer System: Solution For The Alleged Cost-Shift.” The event will take place on Tuesday,... Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, November 8, Health Affairs will release its November 2011 issue, “Linking Community Development & Health.”  The issue explores the connection between improving the health of populations and undertaking efforts to raise incomes, employment and overall economic activity in low-income communities. The issue builds on the work of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and... Read the rest of this entry »

In terms of both health and health care, America is an unequal nation. There are well-documented differences in health between whites and racial and ethnic minorities—for example, in life expectancy.  There are also demonstrable differences in health care provided to people of different races and ethnicities—for example, in screening rates for cancers. Despite these gaps,... Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday, October 6, Health Affairs will hold a briefing to release its October 2011 issue, “Agenda For Fighting Disparities.”  The issue explores the relationship of social and economic determinants to health disparities; the role of specific environmental factors; disparities in the quality of health care delivered at hospitals; and other relevant topics. Health Affairs... Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday, October 6, Health Affairs will hold a briefing to release its October 2011 issue, “Agenda For Fighting Disparities.”  The issue explores the relationship of social and economic determinants to health disparities; the role of specific environmental factors; disparities in the quality of health care delivered at hospitals; and other relevant topics. The overall... Read the rest of this entry »

Prevention is critical to reducing rates of chronic disease, premature death and disability, and controlling health care costs. This point has been made many times over by health care and health policy experts both in the United States and abroad. Unfortunately, our current health care system is not set up to incentivize prevention efforts and... Read the rest of this entry »

For those who assume that the next generation of Americans will live longer than their parents, a new “three-dimensional” method of forecasting vital health statistics shows how this may not prove to be the case. Most Americans enjoy better health today than in the past, with significant declines in death rates from the top three... Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re traveling over the long weekend, you’ll want to take along some reading material. While some might reach for a good novel by John Grisham or Dan Brown, the health policy blogs in this edition of the Health Wonk Review tackle equally compelling mysteries. Was the Medicare Trustees report really that gloomy? If Workers... Read the rest of this entry »

In the May Health Affairs issue, Sarah Vogel and Judy Roberts map out the disastrous history of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the major legislation that regulates chemicals.  TSCA makes it difficult for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to restrict use of any of the 62,000 chemicals already in commerce.  It does not... Read the rest of this entry »

Health Affairs plans a thematic cluster for its November 2011 issue on the topic of community development and health. Manuscript submissions are due no later than July 5, 2011. Papers will be selected for the issue based on competitive review. The publication of this cluster is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which in... Read the rest of this entry »

The predictable lead sentence in a recent New York Times story proclaimed not only the obvious — that the economic crisis in the U.S. reduced use of routine medical care – but observed that such cutbacks are much deeper here than in countries with universal health care systems. And the supposed culprit was the usual... Read the rest of this entry »

In 2001, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a warning that this country was facing an “obesity epidemic.” Since that time, there have been public policy responses from all levels of government. Yesterday Health Affairs released three studies about municipal responses, one from Los Angeles and two from New York. • Zoning For Health? The Year-Old Ban... Read the rest of this entry »

We are pleased to announce the “most-read” Health Affairs journal articles published in 2008. The number 1 article has topped 61,000 pageviews to date. The next two articles, which were published in September, analyzed the presidential candidates’ health plans. All articles below are open to all readers for the next 2 weeks—through January 28, 2009.... Read the rest of this entry »

As Jacob, one of the three Old Testament patriarchs, flees from his brother Esau, he stops for the night at Bethel, where he dreams of a ladder going from earth to heaven with the angels of God ascending and descending the ladder (Genesis 28:11-19). There is extensive biblical commentary on this dream and particularly on... Read the rest of this entry »