By Austin Frakt As I read more of the social determinants of health-related literature, I’m noticing a frequent theme: we don’t have enough information to guide decision making. For example, Kali Thomas and colleagues interviewed representatives from 17 Medicare Advantage plans (collectively capturing 65 percent of the Medicare Advantage market) about the importance of addressing social determinants Continue reading [...]

HGHI And BMJ Release Collection of Articles Exploring Barriers to UHC  Universal health coverage (UHC) is priority on the global health agenda. Yet simply prioritizing UHC without answering fundamental underlying questions will lead to the inefficient use of scare resources and little improvement in health and wellbeing. In response, the Harvard Global Health Institute and Continue reading [...]

By Austin Frakt The Urban Institute recently published a report titled “What Would it Take to Reduce Inequities in Healthy Life Expectancy?” Its purpose is to articulate strategies to boost the effectiveness of the health system in addressing health-related social needs to narrow health inequities and areas of research that would help it do so. Continue reading [...]

On September 12th, the GlobalMentalHealth@Harvard Initiative and the Harvard Law School Project on Disability hosted a presentation and excerpt performances from “The Center Cannot Hold,” an opera composed by psychiatrist Kenneth Wells. The opera is based on law professor Elyn Saks’ memoir on her experience with schizophrenia. The event was held in the Hilles Performance Center for over 150 attendees. “The Continue reading [...]

The following is an interview with Len M. Nichols, Ph.D., Director, Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics, Professor of Health Policy, College of Health and Human Services, George Mason University. Austin Frakt: What do you think are the top three most important health-related social needs? Len Nichols: The top three health-related social needs are housing, Continue reading [...]

By Austin Frakt One of the goals of Drivers of Health project is to engage diverse audiences in learning about what affects our health. But how do you get people interested? We thought an interactive might help, so we made one. The interactive encourages users to indicate what they think drives health by connecting the dots Continue reading [...]