Quarterly Department

Original Scholarship

Content Type:

  • Quarterly Article

    Policy Options for Antimicrobial Resistance: Exploring Lessons From Environmental Governance

    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

  • Quarterly Article

    Advancing Equity: Lean Leader Practices and a Path Forward

    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

  • Quarterly Article

    Measuring Primary Care Productivity in the Era of Interprofessional Team Care: Stakeholder, Scoping Review, and Implementation Perspectives

    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

  • Quarterly Article

    Determinants of When Community Behavioral Health Clinics Partner With Emergency Response Systems: The Role of Capacity in 911 Referral and Co-response Models

    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

  • Quarterly Article

    County-Level Immigration Policy and Health Insurance Among Latino Adults and Youth

    August 2025 Maria-Elena De Trinidad Young Danielle M. Crookes Sarina Rodriguez Fabiola Perez-Lua Ninez A. Ponce Alexander N. Ortega

    Federal and state immigration policies influence access to health insurance for Latino populations. Local jurisdictions also have immigration-related policymaking power, but there has been limited study of their influence on health care access. We examined the relationship between county-level immigration policy contexts and health insurance coverage of Latino adults and youth in California using two measures that capture local-level policy decisions and immigration policy–related social inequity. More

  • Quarterly Article

    State Public Coverage of Pregnant Undocumented Immigrants and Prenatal Insurance Uptake

    August 2025 Meghan Bellerose Linqing Zheng Arielle Desir Rachel E. Fabi Laura R. Wherry Maria W. Steenland

    Health insurance coverage increases access to recommended pregnancy care, but undocumented immigrants are not eligible for pregnancy Medicaid coverage without state uptake of alternative policy options. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia (DC) offer public insurance to undocumented immigrants who are income eligible for pregnancy Medicaid through the Children’s Health Insurance Program From-Conception-to-End-of-Pregnancy option or state funds. More

  • Quarterly Article

    The Significance of Definitions in Determining the Level of Community Benefits for Nonprofit Hospitals

    August 2025 Hossein Zare Gerard Anderson

    The American Hospital Association determined that in 2022 nonprofit hospitals spent $129 billion on community benefits. This is more than the entire budget for the US public health service. Different organizations estimate different amounts of community benefit spending depending on their definition of community benefit. More

  • Quarterly Article

    People Versus Product: Conditions for Success for Community Health Workers as Sustainable Members of the Public Health Workforce

    August 2025 John Billimek Melina Michelen Patricia J. Cantero Noraima Chirinos Rocio Salazar Mary Anne Foo Samantha Peralta Brittany N. Morey Jacqueline J. Chow Salvador Zarate Sora Park Tanjasiri Alana M. W. Lebrón

    Community health workers (CHWs) are frontline public health workers who support the well-being and capacity building of residents disproportionately affected by health inequities. The purpose of this study is to examine diverse perspectives on the conditions for CHW success as CHWs were engaged in rapidly implemented, highly responsive education, vaccination, and recovery efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large county in Southern California. More

  • A Case Study of Maine’s Risk-Based Firearm Removal Law

    Quarterly Article

    A Case Study of Maine’s Risk-Based Firearm Removal Law

    August 2025 David B. Joyce Jeffrey Swanson

    Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) are an effective legal tool for reducing firearm suicide by temporarily removing access to firearms for certain individuals who exhibit dangerous behavior. Unlike most state laws restricting access to firearms based on status, ERPOs are predicated on the assessment of future risk of harm to self or other, as determined by civil court file finding. Emerging research indicates that separating those in crisis from lethal means reduces firearm mortality. We assess Maine’s unique approach and consider whether it is a replicable policy option for other states or should be modified to comport with other states’ more broadly applicable model. More

  • Quarterly Article

    Turf Wars: How Growth and Competitive Shocks Have Affected the Performance and Stability of Community Health Centers

    July 2025 Justin Markowski

    Context: Community health centers (CHCs) are a critical and growing part of the health care safety net, doubling over the past 15 years to expand access to essential health care services to over 31 million patients in traditionally underserved communities. However, increasingly, CHCs have opened care delivery locations in communities already served by another CHC, potentially creating competitive markets with unknown implications for how this safety net operates. More