Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
That is the title of a paper by Arnold and Priestley (2025). They examine whether gun purchase wait periods impact suicide rates using both variation in gun laws by state over time as well as variation in a county’s distance to the nearest state without a waiting period. First, some background on US gun purchase…
Everyone knows that eating healthy is good for your health. But should we think of food as a type of medicine? A paper by Ridberg et al. (2025) examines public perceptions of different interventions to get people to eat better to improve their health. Health systems are increasingly deploying Food Is Medicine interventions, which incorporate…
This is a new organization that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aims to create, consolidating the functions of many federal health organizations and cutting significant staff. The Guardian reports: Robert F Kennedy Jr said the nation’s health agencies will cut 10,000 jobs from their 82,000-person workforce – an enormous reduction the US health secretary characterized as…
Last month, I noted that the decrease in vaccination rates has likely resulted in increased rates of measles in Texas and around the US. With measles cases on the rise, RFK Jr. now is has made a “call to action” to increase uptake of the MMR vaccine. Here is a quote from his editorial: As…
In the US, opioid abuse has become and epidemic. However, in the past year, there is some hope that this epidemic is starting to reverse. Opioid deaths have fallen by 16.9% in the past year. Why have deaths fallen? According to The Economist, no one is sure: One possibility is a supply shock…the amount of…
While opioid overdoses have been rising for decades, trends in most recent times provide us a glimmer of hope. NPR reports: For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S.“This is exciting,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute On…
The RE-AIM framework developed by Glasgow et al. (1999) has five evaluation components. Reach: share of people from a given population who participate in a program and their characteristics. For instance, organizational reach with stakeholders could be indirect, intended or direct. Reach is the number of participants in the program divided by the size of…
The Rippel Foundation has an interesting framework to describe the dimensions for improving health and overall individual quality of life. This is part of their mission to guide “transformational change that supports better health and well-being for all—a future where everyone thrives, without exception.” The organization identified relevant desirable outcomes of health and wellness as…
It makes sense that more educated individuals have lower mortality rates. Better education may improve health literacy. More education can lead to higher income and and more employee health benefits (with better insurance coverage). However, does living in communities with more educated individuals impact mortality separately from whether an individual’s family is highly educated? According…
According to the 2019 NSDUH survey, 27.7 percent of 18-22 year olds who are not enrolled in college full-time and 33.0% of 18-22 year old full-time college students reported binge drinking in the past month. Should society impose stricter restrictions on drugs and alcohol for younger individuals? On the one hand, drugs and alcohol harm…