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Quarterly Department
Quarterly Article
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
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
August 2025 ASHLY E. JORDAN, RABIAH GAYNOR, CAROL MOORES, YOLANDA CANTY, CHINAZO O. CUNNINGHAM,
In the United States, substance use disorder (SUD) is a significant public health and public safety challenge. Up to two-thirds of individuals who are incarcerated meet SUD criteria, compared with 16.7% of the general population. Individuals who have opioid use disorder (OUD) are also overrepresented in criminal legal settings: approximately 15.0% to 30.0% of individuals who are incarcerated have OUD, compared with 3.7% of the general population. Furthermore, individuals who are incarcerated are at high risk for fatal overdose both inside carceral facilities and upon reentry to the community. Overdose is the third leading cause of death in jails, and overdose deaths have increased more than six times over the past two decades in prisons. Among those reentering the community, fatal overdose is the leading cause of death. The risk of fatal overdose within the first two weeks following reentry is more than 100 times higher than in the general US population. More
August 2025 David H. Jernigan,
Alcohol is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions in the human body. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define excessive drinking as binge drinking (4 or more drinks for women, 5 or more for men on one occasion in the past month), heavy drinking (8 or more drinks for women, 15 or more for men in a week), and any drinking during pregnancy or by persons younger than age 21 years. More
August 2025 Philip M. Alberti,
For more than 2 years, I have started my speaking engagements with a simple message: “Health equity benefits all communities.” Although the message may be straightforward, health equity–focused scientists and advocates like me have done an inadequate and ineffective job making that point clear and believable through stories, data, and messaging. More
August 2025 Rick Mayes, Micah Johnson,
From 2004 to 2024, Medicare Advantage (MA) went from being a “policy disappointment,” covering 12% of all Medicare beneficiaries, to predominance, covering more than one-half (52%), with more growth predicted in the future. Drawing on an extensive review and synthesis of the literature, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) reports, congressional committee hearings, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data, this paper analyzes the evolution of Medicare and managed care in three parts More
July 2025 BRANDON D. L. MARSHALL, Kristen Pendergrass, Sara Whaley,
The US overdose crisis is one of the most severe and devastating public health problems of the 21st century. Since 1999, more than one million Americans have lost their lives to accidental drug overdose. More
July 2025 Corey Davis, Amy Lieberman, Czarina Behrends,
The United States continues to experience a nearly unprecedented level of drug-related health harms, with over 105,000 Americans dying of overdose in 2023 alone. Although overall overdose deaths declined slightly from 2022 to 2023, rates for Black people continued to rise. Stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine are increasingly involved in overdose deaths, and xylazine and other contaminants continue to be prevalent in the illicit drug supply. More
July 2025 Hannah L.F. Cooper, Anna L. Mullany, Snigdha Peddireddy, Simone Wien, Melvin "Doug" Livingston, Whitney S. Rice, Anne L. Dunlop, Michael R. Kramer, Madison Haiman, Lasha S. Clarke, Natalie D. Hernandez-Green, Angélica Meinhofer,
See all articles in the special issue, Mental Health and Substance Use Challenges Facing the United States: What Can State Policymakers… More
July 2025 Gabriela Plasencia, Kamaria Kaalund, Olurotimi Kukoyi, Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, Andrea Thoumi,
Populations that identify as Latino/a/e/x or Hispanic (herein referred to as Latine) in the United States continue to face disproportion-ate health and socioeconomic challenges that were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic and persist in the current political climate. More
