Early Views

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

nformation about lobbying is crucial to alert the public about undue influence in government decision making. Yet, government disclosures of lobbying activities are rare internationally and vary considerably in their completeness and accessibility. Building on a framework to measure lobbying transparency, this study benchmarked national government disclosures to understand what information was shared and to develop recommendations to strengthen political transparency.  More

The justice system incarcerates nearly 2.3 million individuals in the United States. Black Americans comprise 40% of those incarcerated despite representing less than 15% of the population. Theoretical work posits that mass incarceration can erode social capital by straining social and family networks as well as inducing carceral churn and coercive mobility within Black communities. Scholars report that greater incarceration may influence population-level health, specifically in communities of color. However, previous work does not address whether incarceration, as well as the racial disparity in incarceration, corresponds with psychiatric help seeking in the Black community.  More

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…  More

Prescription drug prices in the United States are substantially higher than in other high-income countries, with US prices reported to be an average of 2.78 times those of other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.1 In response to these high prices, along with an opaque supply chain that can lead to substantial discrepancies in prices across different payors, states have passed drug price transparency laws that require manufacturers to disclose information on drug prices.  More

Leaders at many of the country’s top academic medical centers earned—in addition to their institutional salaries—hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as directors of pharmaceutical and device companies. Critics have urged academic institutions to rethink conflict of interest policies governing leaders’ outside activities, which are understood to pose not only individual conflicts for leaders themselves but also institutional conflicts for their academic employers.  More