We focus on a number of topic areas identified by state health policy leaders as important to population health.
Keep up with news and updates from the Milbank Memorial Fund. Get the latest from thought leaders, including Christopher F. Koller, president of the Fund.
We publish The Milbank Quarterly, as well as reports, issues briefs, and case studies on topics important to population health.
The Center for Evidence-based Policy at Oregon Health & Science University is a national leader in evidence-based decision making and policy design.
The Milbank Memorial Fund is an endowed operating foundation that publishes The Milbank Quarterly, commissions projects, and convenes state health policy decision makers on issues they identify as important to population health.
Jonathan Purtle, Félice Lê-Scherban, Xi Wang, Paul T. Shattuck, Enola K. Proctor, Ross C. Brownson
Opinion
Joshua M. Sharfstein
Last spring, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a study on adolescent development underscoring the need for policies and practices that help realize the promise of adolescence — rather than just contain its risks. Read more
David A. Rochefort
Now nearly 50 years old, Assertive Community Treatment, or ACT, is one of the most influential programs ever developed for adults with serious mental illness. The model offers continuous treatment outside the hospital setting, and rigorous case management featuring individualized treatment plans and multidisciplinary care teams. While the ACT framework has been adapted over time to serve a variety of client groups, a growing number of critics today are calling for alternatives. Read more
David K. Jones
To date, 37 states have expanded Medicaid eligibility through the Affordable Care Act. However, as Boston University’s David K. Jones points out in a new early view Milbank Quarterly Opinion, a block of states in the Deep South continues to resist. Read more
Erika Franklin Fowler, Laura M. Baum, Emma Jesch, Dolly Haddad, Carolyn Reyes, Sarah E. Gollust, Jeff Niederdeppe
Health and health care are once again major issues in the 2020 presidential campaign. This new study examines how political advertising affects public discussions of population health topics. Erika Franklin Fowler of Wesleyan University and colleagues examined television ads, which remain a dominant platform, for campaigns for political office at all levels of government in the 2011-2012 and 2015-2016 election cycles. Read more
Michael Mintrom
Last May, New Zealand passed its first “Wellbeing Budget.” The budget marked a possible watershed moment for policymakers and others who, as Michael Mintrom of Monash University in Australia explains, support “the idea that financial prosperity alone is not a sufficient measure of the quality of a nation’s life.” Mintrom’s article is one of three opinions in a Milbank Quarterly Policy Forum on the budget. Read more
Ashley Bloomfield
Sandro Galea, Salma M. Abdalla
Ann Rossier Markus, Kan Gianattasio, Eric (Qian) Luo, Julia Strasser
Most states that might transition to block grant funding for Medicaid—in which the federal government provides a fixed annual sum—would see lower revenue for their community health centers that care for Medicaid beneficiaries and other residents. Under a block grant, total health center revenues would drop 92% for the Medicaid expansion population and 58% for traditional enrollees by 2024. Read more
Kara Odom Walker
Primary care workforce challenges are particularly acute in Delaware, a small state with high per-person heath care spending but poor outcomes on measures such as oral health, infant mortality, and obesity rates. Yet, in a new Milbank Quarterly guest opinion, Delaware’s Health and Human Services Secretary Kara Odom Walker, a family physician, says that any solution that lowers costs and improves quality will require a foundation of enhanced primary care. Read more
