March 2019  (Volume 97)

Although it is well established that educational attainment improves health and longevity, the economic value of this benefit is unknown. Researchers estimate that the economic value of education for longer, healthier lives is comparable to or greater than the value of education for lifetime earnings. A template that assigns an economic value to the health benefits associated with education or other social determinants can allow policymakers to prioritize those interventions that yield the greatest value for the population.  More

A new Early View study in The Milbank Quarterly shows The Coca-Cola Company’s efforts to influence the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study is based on emails and documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. The emails demonstrate the company’s interest in gaining access to CDC employees in order to lobby policymakers and frame the obesity debate by shifting attention and blame away from sugar-sweetened beverages.  More

Prior to 2007, developing countries were expected to provide virus samples to the World Health Organization (WHO) without any guarantee that they would have access to the benefits associated with their use—namely, vaccines and antivirals. To remedy this, the WHO adopted the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework (PIP Framework), the only pathogen-specific international access and benefit-sharing instrument. In this analysis of the PIP Framework, the author finds that it will safeguard access to virus samples, but may not be as effective in delivering vaccines and antivirals to countries in need.  More

In an era of unprecedented global aging, a key priority is to align health and social services for older populations in order to support the dual priorities of living well while adapting to a gradual decline in function. Researchers aimed to provide a comprehensive synthesis of evidence regarding service delivery models that optimize quality of life for older people worldwide. They identified two overarching classifications of service models—integrated geriatric care and integrated palliative care—that maximized older people’s quality of life as they neared the end of life.  More

For the past 25 years, health care providers and health system administrators have sought to improve care by surveying patients about their experiences. Recently, policymakers acted to promote this learning by deploying financial incentives tied to survey scores. The authors, who examined the potential of systematically eliciting narratives about experiences with outpatient care, found that rigorously elicited narratives hold substantial promise for improving quality of care in general and in patients’ experiences with care in particular.  More

There is interest in monitoring avoidable or preventable deaths measured directly or indirectly through standardized mortality rates (SMRs). In this systematic review, researchers examined studies that use implicit case note reviews to estimate the range of preventable death rates observed, the measurement characteristics of those estimates, and the measurement procedures used to generate them. Estimates for preventable death rates using implicit case note reviews by clinicians are quite low, suggesting that SMRs will not work well to rank hospitals.  More

Prior to 2007, developing countries were expected to provide virus samples to the World Health Organization (WHO) without any guarantee that they would have access to the benefits associated with their use—namely, vaccines and antivirals. To remedy this, the WHO adopted the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework (PIP Framework), the only pathogen-specific international access and benefit-sharing instrument. In this analysis of the PIP Framework, the author finds that it will safeguard access to virus samples, but may not be as effective in delivering vaccines and antivirals to countries in need.  More