With each issue of The Milbank Quarterly, Editor Alan Cohen will discuss a research article and its policy implications with the authors in our new podcast.

Episode 4: Removing Medicaid Barriers to Midwives and Birth Centers

Published December 16, 2020. US maternal and infant health outcomes are among the worst among wealthy nations.  In this episode, Milbank Quarterly Editor Alan Cohen speaks with Bridgette Courtot, a senior research associate in the health policy center at the Urban Institute, about her article in the December 2020 issue, which looks at the opportunity that Medicaid, the dominant insurer in the United States, has “to move the needle for moms and babies.” Read the transcript and visit our podcast page to subscribe through Spotify or other listening platforms.

 

Episode 3: How State Policy Trends May Be Driving State Life Expectancy

Published September 10, 2020. Around 1980, the United States started lagging other high-income countries on life expectancy, and life expectancy trends began diverging widely by state. Jennifer Karas Montez, a sociologist at Syracuse University, and her colleagues wanted to find out why. In this episode, she discusses the results of a Milbank Quarterly study that found more liberal state policies, such as a higher minimum wage, are generally associated with longer life expectancy.  Read the transcript and visit our podcast page to subscribe through Spotify or other listening platforms.

Episode 2: The Impact of Social Policy on Health

Published June 14, 2020. COVID-19 is demonstrating just how much poverty can affect health. In this episode, Emilie Courtin of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Peter Muennig of Columbia University, discuss their June Milbank Quarterly article, which systematically reviewed all known randomized social policy experiments in the United States that included health outcomes. Their work found that early life, income-related, and health insurance policies all have the potential to improve health. Read the transcript. Visit our podcast page to subscribe through Spotify or other listening platforms.

Episode 1: What Opioid Prevention Policies Should States Consider?

Published March 12, 2020. Alan Cohen, editor of The Milbank Quarterly, talks with Amanda Mauri of the University of Michigan and her colleague Rebecca Haffajee of the RAND Corporation about their research article evaluating state opioid prevention policies. Read the transcript. Visit our podcast page to subscribe through Spotify or other listening platforms.