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Full-Text Articles in Health Policy

The Federal Government Must Revise Public Housing Policies To Protect Vulnerable Populations From Evictions, Caroline Grabowski Dec 2023

The Federal Government Must Revise Public Housing Policies To Protect Vulnerable Populations From Evictions, Caroline Grabowski

Population Health Research Brief Series

Over 100,000 Americans are now dying from drug overdoses annually, signifying that the goal of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act (ADAA) to end illicit drug use has not been achieved. What’s more, numerous statutes within the ADAA have created or worsened housing instability among people who use drugs and their families. This is because the ADAA allows public housing officials to use their own discretion when determining evictions and lease refusals and has disproportionately harmed individuals in public housing who did not participate in the drug-related activities that led to their eviction. This brief describes how the ADAA negatively affects …


Bridging The Gap: Reducing Disparities In Reproductive Healthcare For Black And White Women, Emma Weiden Dec 2023

Bridging The Gap: Reducing Disparities In Reproductive Healthcare For Black And White Women, Emma Weiden

Population Health Research Brief Series

A woman’s reproductive healthcare experience in the United States can vary dramatically depending on her race. In 2020, the pregnancy-related mortality rate in the U.S. was 40.8 deaths per 100,000 live births for Black women, which is more than three times the rate among White women (12.7 per 100,000). This brief summarizes disparities in reproductive healthcare outcomes for Black women compared to White women in the U.S., advocates for policy changes, and provides recommendations for addressing racial disparities to create more equitable reproductive healthcare.


Covid-19 Mortality Rates Were Higher In States That Limited Governments From Enacting Public Health Emergency Orders, Xue Zhang, Mildred E. Warner, Gen Meredith Aug 2023

Covid-19 Mortality Rates Were Higher In States That Limited Governments From Enacting Public Health Emergency Orders, Xue Zhang, Mildred E. Warner, Gen Meredith

Population Health Research Brief Series

State and local governments enacted various public health emergency policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in lower infection and death rates than would have occurred without these policies. However, some states limited the emergency public health authority of state executives, state governors, and other state and local officials during the pandemic. This brief summarizes the results of a study that used data from the Center for Public Health Law Research and Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker to explore which states passed laws that limited emergency public health authority during the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of those limits on COVID-19 …


Emotional Distress During Covid-19 By Mental Health Conditions And Economic Vulnerability: Retrospective Analysis Of Survey-Linked Twitter Data With A Semisupervised Machine Learning Algorithm, Michiko Ueda-Ballmer, Kohei Watanabe, Hajime Sueki Aug 2023

Emotional Distress During Covid-19 By Mental Health Conditions And Economic Vulnerability: Retrospective Analysis Of Survey-Linked Twitter Data With A Semisupervised Machine Learning Algorithm, Michiko Ueda-Ballmer, Kohei Watanabe, Hajime Sueki

Center for Policy Design and Governance

The brief provides a summary of "Emotional Distress During COVID-19 by Mental Health Conditions and Economic Vulnerability: Retrospective Analysis of Survey-Linked Twitter Data With a Semisupervised Machine Learning Algorithm," co-authored by Michiko Ueda-Ballmer, Kohei Watanabe, and Hajime Sueki and published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.


Medicaid-Insured Older Adults On Snap May Have Stronger Medication Adherence, Colleen Heflin, Chinedum O. Ojinnaka, Irma A. Arteaga, Leslie Hodges, Gabriella Alphonso Apr 2023

Medicaid-Insured Older Adults On Snap May Have Stronger Medication Adherence, Colleen Heflin, Chinedum O. Ojinnaka, Irma A. Arteaga, Leslie Hodges, Gabriella Alphonso

Center for Policy Research

For older adults with hypertension, medication adherence is critical to decreasing hospitalization, poor health outcomes, and healthcare costs. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—the largest food and nutrition assistance program in the United States—could protect against medication non-adherence. This brief summarizes the findings from a recent study, which linked Missouri Medicaid administrative claims data to SNAP data from 2006 to 2014. The findings suggest that longer and consistent receipt of SNAP benefits was associated with higher levels of antihypertensive medication adherence among Medicaid-insured individuals aged 60 years and older.


Medicaid-Insured Older Adults On Snap May Have Stronger Medication Adherence, Colleen Heflin, Chinedum O. Ojinnaka, Irma A. Arteaga, Leslie Hodges, Gabriella Alphonso Apr 2023

Medicaid-Insured Older Adults On Snap May Have Stronger Medication Adherence, Colleen Heflin, Chinedum O. Ojinnaka, Irma A. Arteaga, Leslie Hodges, Gabriella Alphonso

Population Health Research Brief Series

For older adults with hypertension, medication adherence is critical to decreasing hospitalization, poor health outcomes, and healthcare costs. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—the largest food and nutrition assistance program in the United States—could protect against medication non-adherence. This brief summarizes the findings from a recent study, which linked Missouri Medicaid administrative claims data to SNAP data from 2006 to 2014. The findings suggest that longer and consistent receipt of SNAP benefits was associated with higher levels of antihypertensive medication adherence among Medicaid-insured individuals aged 60 years and older.


Financial Rewards Tied To Quality Measures Lead Home Health Agencies To Exaggerate Their Improvements, Jun Li, Meher Chahal Apr 2023

Financial Rewards Tied To Quality Measures Lead Home Health Agencies To Exaggerate Their Improvements, Jun Li, Meher Chahal

Population Health Research Brief Series

More than 4 million people in the United States use home health care each year, but the quality varies and is often poor. In 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began rewarding and penalizing home health agencies for their performance on a set of predetermined quality measures in an experiment called the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) program. This brief summarizes the results of a recent study evaluating the program’s impact on quality measures within the HHVBP and whether there was a relationship between incentive size and apparent quality. Findings suggest that while financial rewards improved the …


How Has The Opioid Overdose Crisis Affected Child Maltreatment In The U.S.?, Alexander Chapman Mar 2023

How Has The Opioid Overdose Crisis Affected Child Maltreatment In The U.S.?, Alexander Chapman

Population Health Research Brief Series

This brief summarizes results from a study examining the association between U.S. county-level opioid mortality rates and child maltreatment rates from 2007 to 2017. Places with higher opioid overdose mortality rates have higher rates of child maltreatment. Poverty makes this problem worse - where the proportion of families in poverty increases, the association between fatal opioid overdose rates and child maltreatment also increases. Findings suggest that intervening in opioid use by reducing poverty has the potential to markedly decrease the incidence of child maltreatment.


The Oxycontin® Reformulation In 2010 Increased States’ Food Insecurity Rates, Colleen Heflin, Xiaohan Sun Mar 2023

The Oxycontin® Reformulation In 2010 Increased States’ Food Insecurity Rates, Colleen Heflin, Xiaohan Sun

Population Health Research Brief Series

The massive surge in opioid misuse and overdose over the past three decades has led to major family, economic, and social disruptions in the United States. OxyContin® - a highly potent, extended-release opioid was among the most commonly-abused narcotics throughout the 2000s. After reformulating OxyContin® to make it more difficult to inhale or inject, many people with opioid use disorders switched to using street drugs. The reformulation had many other unanticipated consequences. This brief shows that states with higher initial OxyContin® misuse rates had an increase in food insecurity after OxyContin® reformulation. The authors argue that public policies must consider …


How Has The Opioid Crisis Affected Health, Health Care Use, And Crime In The United States?, Johanna Catherine Maclean, Justine Mallatt, Christopher J. Ruhm, Kosali Simon Mar 2023

How Has The Opioid Crisis Affected Health, Health Care Use, And Crime In The United States?, Johanna Catherine Maclean, Justine Mallatt, Christopher J. Ruhm, Kosali Simon

Population Health Research Brief Series

The U.S. opioid crisis is the deadliest drug crisis in the nation’s history and is not abating. This brief summarizes what is known about the relationships between opioid misuse, health, healthcare use, and crime. The authors show that the opioid crisis has led to worsening health, increased mortality, increased healthcare use, and modest increases in crime. In addition, the policies designed to curb opioid misuse and its associated harms have had only limited success.


Federal Medication-Assisted Treatment Expansion Grants Do Not Reduce Homelessness, Andrew Sullivan, Changwe Park Mar 2023

Federal Medication-Assisted Treatment Expansion Grants Do Not Reduce Homelessness, Andrew Sullivan, Changwe Park

Population Health Research Brief Series

Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is an evidence-based intervention that, combined with counseling and behavioral therapies, can effectively treat opioid use disorders. However, MAT is underused due to multiple barriers. To increase access to MAT, the U.S. government awarded grants to local governments and nonprofit organizations to increase and retain the number of people receiving MAT. This brief examined differences in homelessness and employment outcomes between places that received a MAT grant and those that did not. They found that these grants did not reduce homelessness or unemployment rates in the places that received funding and concluded that their effectiveness may have …


Exposure To Free School Meals In Kindergarten Has Lasting Positive Effects On Students’ Attendance, Samantha Trajkovski, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Michah W. Rothbart Feb 2023

Exposure To Free School Meals In Kindergarten Has Lasting Positive Effects On Students’ Attendance, Samantha Trajkovski, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Michah W. Rothbart

Population Health Research Brief Series

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the country's second-largest food assistance program, serving free or reduced-price meals to 30 million students daily. A growing number of schools and districts offer Universal Free Meals (UFM), which provides free meals to all students regardless of income. This brief summarizes findings examining the relationship between exposure to UFM in kindergarten and attendance and weight outcomes in NYC students from grades K-3. The results demonstrate that children who receive free meals through UFM in kindergarten have better school attendance than those who do not. In addition, there is no evidence that receipt of …


The U.S. Should Increase Access To Medication For Opioid Use Disorder Among Incarcerated Individuals, Cody Nagle Jan 2023

The U.S. Should Increase Access To Medication For Opioid Use Disorder Among Incarcerated Individuals, Cody Nagle

Population Health Research Brief Series

Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is among the most common medical diagnoses for people in jails and prisons. Those leaving incarceration without substance use treatment are 40 times more likely than the general public to have a fatal overdose, making it the leading cause of death for people recently released. This brief describes the use of Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) and Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) as realistic and legally protected approaches to reducing overdoses upon exiting incarceration. It also calls for federal regulation and guidance on the use of MOUD in prisons, jails, and drug courts to ensure each …