About The Milbank Quarterly

Continuously published since 1923, The Milbank Quarterly features peer-reviewed original research, policy review, and analysis from academics, clinicians, and policymakers.

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Editor

Alan B. Cohen

Publisher

Christopher F. Koller

Managing Editor

Tara Strome

2-year Impact Factor: 6.237
Journal Citation Reports® 2021 Rankings: 5/88 (Health Policy & Services); 13/109 (Health Care Sciences & Services)
5-year Impact Factor: 8.964

The Latest from The Milbank Quarterly 

Centennial Issue: The Future of Population Health

In celebration of its 100th anniversary, The Milbank Quarterly has published a special issue of 36 articles by a diverse set of leading and emerging scholars. The issue covers:

  • The structural drivers of population health
  • State- and municipal-level policies and strategies to advance population health
  • Key issues in population health and health equity; population health’s major challenges
  • Public health systems and strategies
  • The role of the US health system

Read the issue

  1. Early View Original Scholarship

    Politics and the Public Health Workforce: Lessons Suggested from a Five-State Study

    By:  Michael S. Sparer Lawrence D. Brown

    The politics of public health requires a closer look at the role played by county commissioners, mayors, and other local elected officials. We need a political strategy to persuade these officials that their constituents will benefit from a better public health system. More

  2. Early View Original Scholarship

    Electoral Democracy and Working-Age Mortality

    By:  Jennifer Karas Montez Jacob M. Grumbach Kent Jason Cheng

    Erosion of electoral democracy is a threat to population health. This study adds to growing evidence that electoral democracy and population health are inextricably linked. More

  3. Early View Perspective

    Toward a Values-Informed Approach to Complexity in Health Care: Hermeneutic Review

    By:  Trisha Greenhalgh Eivind Engebretsen Roland Bal Sofia Kjellström

    In this review paper, authors explore the crucial contribution of human values to complex interaction and change. In the form of “simple rules,” we offer some preliminary recommendations for a more contemporary and values-informed approach to complexity in health care. We invite a new generation of research to extend the existing evidence base. More

  4. Early View Original Scholarship

    Structural Factors and Racial/Ethnic Inequities in Travel Times to Acute Care Hospitals in the Rural US South, 2007–2018

    By:  Arrianna Marie Planey Donald A. Planey Sandy Wong Sara L. McLafferty Michelle J. Ko

    Rural places affected by rural hospital closures have greater travel burdens for acute care. Across the rural South, racial/ethnic inequities in spatial access to acute care are most pronounced when travel times to the second nearest open acute care hospital are accounted for. More

  5. Early View Original Scholarship

    Measuring Trust in Primary Care

    By:  Zachary Merenstein Jill C. Shuemaker Robert L. Phillips

    Context: Trust is a fundamental aspect of any human relationship, and medical care is no exception. An ongoing, trusting relationship between… More

  6. Early View Original Scholarship

    Provision of Social Care Services by US Hospitals

    By:  Bradley Iott Denise Anthony

    Context: Despite growing interest in identifying patients’ social needs, little is known about hospitals’ provision of services to address them.… More

  7. Early View Original Scholarship

    US Policies That Define Foods for Junk Food Taxes, 1991–2021

    By:  Jennifer L. Pomeranz Dariush Mozaffarian Sean B. Cash

    Context: Suboptimal diet is a substantial contributor to weight gain, cardiometabolic diseases, and certain cancers. Junk food taxes can raise the… More

  8. Early View Original Scholarship

    Strategic Messaging to Promote Policies that Advance Racial Equity: What Do We Know, and What Do We Need to Learn?

    By:  Jeff Niederdeppe Jiawei Liu Mikaela Spruill Neil A. Lewis Jr. Steven Moore Erika Franklin Fowler Sarah E. Gollust

    Context: Long-standing racial inequities in health and well-being are shaped by racialized public policies that perpetuate disadvantage among Black,… More

  9. Early View Original Scholarship

    Century-Long Trends in the Financing and Ownership of American Health Care

    By:  Adam Gaffney Steffie Woolhandler David U. Himmelstein

    Context: Who pays for health care—and who owns it—determine what care is delivered, who receives it, and who profits from it. We examined trends… More

  10. Early View Original Scholarship

    Can US Medical Schools Teach About Structural Racism?

    By:  Anthony L. Schlaff Ndidiamaka N. Amutah-Onukagha Dorcas Mabiala Jasmin Kamruddin Fernando F. Ona

    Context: Since the beginning of COVID-19 and the rise of social justice movements sparked by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the… More

  11. Early View Original Scholarship

    Societal Adaptation to Aging and Prevalence of Depression Among Older Adults: Evidence From 20 Countries

    By:  Robin A. Richardson Katherine Keyes Cynthia Chen Guan Yun Kenwin Maung John Rowe Esteban Calvo

    Context: Countries have adopted various formal and informal approaches to support older adults, which are broadly reflected in different policies,… More

  12. Early View Original Scholarship

    Earmarked Taxes for Mental Health Services in the United States: A Local and State Legal Mapping Study

    By:  Jonathan Purtle Megan Wynecoop Margaret E. Crane Nicole A. Stadnick

    State and local governments have been adopting taxes that earmark (i.e., dedicate) revenue for mental health. However, this emergent financing model has not been systematically assessed. We sought to identify all jurisdictions in the United States with policies earmarking taxes for mental health services and characterize attributes of these taxes More

  13. Early View Original Scholarship

    Conceptualizing the Mechanisms of Social Determinants of Health: A Heuristic Framework to Inform Future Directions for Mitigation

    By:  Marco Thimm-Kaiser Adam Benzekri Vincent Guilamo-Ramos

    To expand the number of effective strategies to address social determinants of health (SDOH), a practical framework for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers is needed to help conceptualize and target the key mechanisms of SDOH influence. More

  14. Early View Perspective

    Mixed Signals in Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Well-Being Indicators in the United States: A Call for Improvements to Population Health Monitoring

    By:  Nathaniel Anderson Neal Halfon Daniel Eisenberg Anna Markowitz Kristin Anderson Moore Frederick J. Zimmerman

    Monitoring population health is one of the 10 essential services of public health. Accurate information on current and emerging threats to the public’s health forms the basis for high-quality research, practice, and policy. For this reason, critical appraisal of the measures and data systems tracking the nation’s health is a persistent necessity. More

  15. Early View Original Scholarship

    Big Med’s Spread

    By:  Lawton Robert Burns Mark V. Pauly

    Context: There is a growing trend of combinations among hospital systems that operate in different geographic markets known as cross-market mergers.… More

  16. Early View Original Scholarship

    Potentially More Out of Reach: Public Reporting Exacerbates Inequities in Home Health Access

    By:  Shekinah A. Fashaw-Walters Momotazur Rahman Gilbert Gee Vincent Mor Maricruz Rivera-Hernandez Ceron Ford Kali S. Thomas

    Context: Literature suggests that public reporting of quality may have the unintended consequence of exacerbating disparities in access to… More

Current Issue

  1. The Next Generation of Payment Reforms for Population Health – An Actionable Agenda for 2035 Informed by Past Gains and Ongoing Lessons

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  2. A Population Health Impact Pyramid for Health Care

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  3. The Global Health Architecture: Governance and International Institutions to Advance Population Health Worldwide

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  4. Challenges, Successes, and the Future of Firearm Injury Prevention

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  5. The Future of Public Mental Health: Challenges and Opportunities

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  6. Improving Older Adults’ Health by Reducing Administrative Burden

    Read More

Read the Current Issue

The Milbank Quarterly Opinion

The Off-Ramp from COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Orders: Are We on a Road Forward or a U-Turn?

The sunsetting of emergency declarations and orders, while signaling a decrease in the turmoil caused by COVID-19, does not mean the pandemic is over in the United States or globally.  More
Paula M. Lantz

Paula M. Lantz

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Reimagining Prevention in a Post-COVID-19 World

At some level, we failed at prevention during the COVID-19 pandemic. If our metric for success was preventing viral spread, illness, or death, then a pandemic in which the United States was hit harder than any other large country showed us that we fell substantially shorter in prevention than we might have hoped. With this as a motivating impulse, I suggest that we ask two questions: what caused the consequences of COVID-19 to be so devastating in the US? And, understanding that, what would be an intellectual and practical agenda for prevention going forward?  More
Sandro Galea

Sandro Galea

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The Courts vs. Public Health

Two recent, much-discussed decisions from federal courts in Texas—one striking down the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for insurance coverage of preventive health services, the other invalidating the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone—illustrate a deepening tension between the public health community and the courts. Both decisions are now on appeal and may not ultimately be affirmed.  More

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