The Fund supports networks of state health policy decision makers to help identify, inspire, and inform policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund supports two state leadership programs for legislative and executive branch state government officials committed to improving population health.
The Fund identifies and shares policy ideas and analysis to advance state health leadership, strong primary care, and sustainable health care costs.
Keep up with news and updates from the Milbank Memorial Fund. And read the latest blogs from our thought leaders, including Fund President Christopher F. Koller.
The Fund publishes The Milbank Quarterly, as well as reports, issues briefs, and case studies on topics important to health policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund is is a foundation that works to improve population health and health equity.
Child Health Public Health
September 2025 Louisiana M. Sanchez, Junhan Cho, Alyssa F. Harlow, Richard A. Miech, Steven Sussman, Hongying D. Dai, Abigail Adjei, Dae-Hee Han, Ming Li, Leah Meza, Adam M. Leventhal, Dayoung Bae,
The specific nontobacco e-cigarette flavors used by US youth who exclusively vape e-cigarettes compared with youth who engage in poly-tobacco or poly-substance use can help identify the populations most likely to be impacted by e-cigarette flavor policies. More
Population Health Social determinants of health
September 2025 Michael J. Yedidia, Joel C. Cantor,
Cross-sector collaborations among health care and housing services organizations promise more efficient use of resources and delivery of more coherent and effective services to people experiencing homelessness (PEH). More
Behavioral Health Opioid Use Disorder
September 2025 Beth McGinty, Pradhyumna Wagle, Christie Lee Luo, Nicholas J. Seewald, Elizabeth A. Stuart, Kayla N. Tormohlen,
State medical cannabis laws, currently in place in 39 states and Washington, DC, provide an avenue for therapeutic use of cannabis to manage chronic noncancer pain stemming from conditions such as arthritis and low back pain. These laws may also influence cannabis and opioid addiction and overdose, for example, if people substitute cannabis in place of opioids to manage pain. No studies, to our knowledge, have examined how state medical cannabis laws influence health care use related to addiction to or overdose from cannabis or opioids among people with chronic noncancer pain. More
Population Health
September 2025 Isaac Weldon, Kathleen Liddell, Kevin Outterson,
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a pressing global health crisis rooted in complex collective action problems. Despite the urgency, policy responses have not kept pace with the escalating threat of drug resistance. By recognizing the similarities between AMR governance and other shared-resource challenges in environmental governance, this article examines potential strategies for AMR governance. More
Health Equity Health IT
September 2025 Pankaj Jain, Bhav Jain, Rushabh Doshi, Urvish Jain, Henry Claypool, Ariana Aboulafia, Bonnielin K. Swenor,
Throughout the last 50 years, the disability rights movement has made significant progress in providing statutory protections for people with disabilities in the United States. More
September 2025 Alan B. Cohen,
The Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate all manner of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices from government agencies, universities, and private sector workplaces has been coupled with steep funding cuts to key health agencies and the cancellation or freezing of medical research grants and contracts. It’s not just the careers of promising scientists and medical researchers that are at stake, but also the nation’s preeminent standing in the scientific community. Science unfortunately has become the latest victim in the culture wars taking place in the United States. More
Health Care Practice / Quality Health Equity
August 2025 Dorothy Y. Hung, LILLIAN C. LEVY, Thomas G. Rundall, ELINA REPONEN, WILLIAM HUEN, Stephen M. Shortell,
Lean management is a sociotechnical approach to quality improvement that aims for consistency in work processes and outcomes. This can be leveraged to reduce inequities by ensuring delivery of high-quality care to meet the needs of patients with diverse backgrounds. Despite recent efforts in the field, there is limited study on how managers implement health equity and workforce diversity goals as strategies to improve patient care. Given the important role of leadership in fostering workplace culture, we examined leader activities and specifically their use of lean management practices to support equity initiatives in health care. More
Health Care Practice / Quality Primary Care
August 2025 LISA V. RUBENSTEIN, SYDNE J. NEWBERRY, ISHITA GHAI, ANEESA MOTALA, IDAMAY CURTIS, PAUL G. SHEKELLE, TODD H. WAGNER, L. DIEM TRAN, STEPHEN D. FIHN, KARIN M. NELSON,
Current primary care productivity measures do not account for investment in interprofessional primary care teams in relation to primary care goals and thus are insufficient for assessing and improving primary care efficiency and productivity. We explored alternative productivity measurement methods. More
Health Equity Public Health Racism
August 2025 LORI DORFMAN, Sarah E. Gollust, MAKANI THEMBA, PRITPAL S. TAMBER, Anthony Iton,
A growing body of scholarship and practice in public health attests to the importance of addressing differences in power as a fundamental determinant of health inequities. To pursue health equity, public health practitioners must move beyond identifying differences in health outcomes among populations (disparities) to articulating why those differences are unfair or unjust (inequities) and then identifying structures, such as laws, policies, practices, and norms, that advantage some and disadvantage others. More
Health Care Practice / Quality Integrated Care Mental Health
August 2025 Amanda I. Mauri, Zoe Lindenfeld, Charley Willison, THERESE L. TODD, Jonathan Purtle, DIANA SILVER,
Individuals with behavioral health disorders are more likely to experience substantial harm from a police encounter, prompting reforms to minimize encounters between police and people experiencing a behavioral health crisis. One strategy involves expanding partnerships between certified community behavioral health clinic (CCBHC) mobile crisis teams and emergency response systems, often through two models: 911 referral, wherein a CCBHC’s behavioral health practitioner–only team responds to 911 calls, and co-response, wherein a CCBHC clinician joins a police or emergency medical services (EMS) team. More