Population Health

American federalism involves decentralized policymaking across federal, state, and local governments. More

Over the past three decades, mortality from leading causes such as cardiovascular disease and cancer has declined in the United States, but the burden of chronic, disabling conditions, including musculoskeletal disorders, mental and substance use disorders, and obesity, has grown or stagnated, widening the gap between total years lived and years lived in good health. More

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists have been adopted faster and more widely than any anti-obesity therapy prior. More

The United States has among the highest firearm-related deaths in the world. More

Federal, state, and local governments have increasingly focused on innovation, hiring Chief Innovation or Technology Officers to find solutions to improve the delivery of benefits and services and to address unresolved health care issues. More

The US public health system is facing an inflection point characterized by chronic underinvestment, workforce and service delivery challenges, outdated data infrastructure, growing health inequities, and increasing instability within the broader health care safety net including projected Medicaid coverage changes and continued rural hospital closures. More

Racial equity impact assessments (REIAs) are used by local governments to integrate equity considerations into policymaking and decision-making processes by evaluating potential impacts of proposed legislation before enactment. More

From 2021 to 2025, federal nutrition assistance policy in the United States shifted rapidly from expansion to contraction, with major implications for food insecurity, diet quality, and chronic disease risk. More

Edmund Pellegrino warned about the growing commodification of health and health care in the United States. After twenty-five years, it is worth revisiting Pellegrino’s critique and examining this critique in the current era. More

Recent studies have linked the rising rates and growing disparities in working-age mortality partly to changes in US states’ policy contexts since the 1980s. Yet, such studies largely rely on measures of states’ policy contexts, or “policy indices,” that were created for other purposes, are not regularly updated, and use complex methods that can be difficult to interpret and replicate. Further elucidating the mortality trends and disparities would benefit from a policy index that is designed for population health analyses and a clearer understanding of the utility of such indices. More