As the coronavirus continues to sweep across the United States, one question is on everyone’s mind: Where are different communities in the cycle of the pandemic, and how bad will it get? To find answers, state governments and research groups are now collecting detailed testing and hospitalization data that can help assess how each state Continue reading [...]

Co-authored by Austin Frakt and Kate Raphael The most recent issue of Health Affairs focuses on “Integrating Social Services & Health,” and many of the articles highlight the ways in which social policy is linked to health outcomes. Here are a few that stood out to us. Linking Health And Social Services Through Area Agencies On Aging Continue reading [...]

This post, by Austin Frakt, originally appeared on The Incidental Economist on April 2, 2020. I don’t have time for a fully formed post or column on this, but I want to make note of a few ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic is intersecting with drivers of health (which include social determinants and health system factors). Continue reading [...]

By Kate Raphael We understand that social policies have great potential to affect health, but studies that aim to document the associations between policy interventions and health outcomes are often methodologically weak. Association studies are unable to identify the directionality of causal pathways (e.g., do chronically ill people make less money because they are able to Continue reading [...]

We spoke with an attending physician about current hospital working conditions, PPE availability, and medical didactics during the rise of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City. They kindly answered our most pressing questions; in turn, we honored their request to remain anonymous. Continue reading [...]

“We can’t wait until capacity has already been overloaded before requesting extra machines – we have to act now based on the best available data. If we don’t, the surge in COVID-19 patients May result in rationing care and unnecessary deaths.” Continue reading [...]