Improving population health and health equity by connecting leaders with experience and sound evidence

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Improving population health and health equity by connecting leaders with experience and sound evidence

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The Latest from The Milbank Memorial Fund

  1. A Framework for Evaluating Primary Care Investment

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  2. Achieving Paid Family Leave in Minnesota: A Q&A with Senator Alice Mann and Former Representative Ruth Richardson 

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  3. Addressing Unmet Health Care Needs Through Insurance Benefit Design: Challenges and Opportunities

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  4. Webinar: The Engineering and Regulation of Ultraprocessed Foods

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  5. Integrating State Data to Promote Evidence-Based Policy: The New Jersey Integrated Population Health Data (iPHD) Project

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  6. Lessons Rising from the Ruins of a Smallpox Hospital

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Latest Milbank Quarterly Issue Released:  March 2026

  1. Early View Original Scholarship

    Extended Pregnancy Medicaid During COVID-19 and Enrollment and Health Care Use in the Postpartum Year

    By:  Erica L. Eliason Maria W. Steenland Rebecca A. Gourevitch

    Context: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, persons with pregnancy Medicaid coverage were typically disenrolled after 60 days postpartum, at which point they could retain Medicaid only if they qualified through another eligibility category (most commonly as a parent). The March 2020 Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) extended postpartum Medicaid coverage by requiring states to pause disenrollment in exchange for enhanced federal funding. More

  2. Early View Original Scholarship

    US State Policy Contexts and Mental Health Among Working-Age Adults

    By:  Iliya Gutin Jennifer Karas Montez Emily Wiemers Shannon M. Monnat Douglas A. Wolf

    Mental health among US working-age adults notably worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, following a steady decades-long decline. The impact of states’ COVID-19 policies on mental health has received much attention; however, less is known about the impact of a broader set of long-standing and overarching state policy contexts. More

  3. Original Scholarship

    A Scoping Review of Certified Nurse-Midwife and Certified Midwife Care in the United States: Assessing Outcomes Across Six Patient Care Domains

    By:  Emma Virginia Clark Robyn Schafer Rachel Lane Walden Julie Blumenfeld Carrie E. Neerland Katie Page Mavis N. Schorn Sanjana Chimata Heather M. Bradford

    The alarming rise in US maternal mortality and disparities in perinatal, sexual, and reproductive health outcomes underscores the urgent need for effective, equitable, and evidence-based models of care. Care provided by certified nurse-midwives (CNMs) and certified midwives (CMs) has played a critical role in addressing these disparities, yet a comprehensive synthesis of its impact across health care quality domains is lacking. More

  4. From the Editor

    Coming to Terms with MAHA

    By:  Alan B. Cohen

    The “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement has garnered polarized reactions, with praise among proponents for its core elements while also attracting its fair share of criticism. To be sure, there is much to be concerned about the movement, not the least of which is its disregard for scientific evidence that fails to align with its ideology about disease, wellness, and vaccination. More

  5. Early View Original Scholarship

    Preemption and Generational Health Equity: The Role of Forced Inaction in Shaping Outcomes

    By:  Margaret H. Swenson Lauren D. Boczkowski Brad Riley K. Noelle Broughton Christopher J. Koliba

    Racial disparities—unequal outcomes between racial groups—persist in the United States, particularly with respect to health and economic outcomes. There has been increased focus on the ways in which upstream determinants of health contribute to these disparities; however, little is known about how forced inaction on these upstream determinants affects health and economic outcomes. More

  6. Original Scholarship

    How Corruption Influences Population Health

    By:  Ilias Kyriopoulos Dimitrios Minos Sotiris Vandoros Elias Mossialos

    While public health research has examined the macro-level and structural determinants of health, the link between corruption and population health remains underexplored. More

The Milbank Quarterly Opinion

Learning to Love the Data Quality Act

At the very end of the Clinton Administration, Republican Congresswoman JoAnne Emerson inserted a two-paragraph provision into the 2001 Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act. These paragraphs would become known as the Data Quality Act (as well as the Information Quality Act) and its passage represented a major victory for industries – including the tobacco and chemical industries – regulated by the federal government.   More
Joshua M. Sharfstein

Joshua M. Sharfstein

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Affordability and Preventive Public Health Policy

Affordability pressures increasingly shape health risk in the United States, influencing both the upstream conditions that sustain health and the downstream ability to access health promoting resources. Financial stability is a key driver of health, affecting patterns of health, health care use, and the tradeoffs people must make among competing needs. The economic policy landscape aimed at improving financial security for Americans is expansive, complex, and often difficult to organize, making it challenging to discuss how different policies influence financial resilience and population health. We propose the Earn–Keep–Grow framework as a practical way to organize and guide discussion of these policies in population health research and policy decision-making.   More

Uplifting and Not Ceding Ground on Health Equity Practice Is Critical to Strengthening Public Health and the Health of the Nation

Public health science gains in the last quarter century in the United States have been formidable due to a focus on structural and social determinants of health, thereby enhancing understanding of the role of inequitable policies in shaping health inequities and inequitable access to ameliorative resources.   More

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State Networks and Leadership Programs

  • Milbank State Leadership Network

    The Milbank State Leadership Network is a bipartisan group of state health policy leaders from both the executive and legislative branches.

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  • Emerging Leaders Program

    The Emerging Leaders Program seeks to develop practical, hands-on leadership skills in future senior executive and legislative officials.

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  • Milbank Fellows Program

    The Milbank Fellows Program is a leadership program for executive branch and senior legislative state government leaders committed to improving population health.

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