In the wake of a US maternal health crisis, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) may be a key opportunity to improve maternal health care.

Certified nurse-midwives (CNMs) provide evidence-based maternity care associated with improved birth outcomes, yet half of US states do not grant them independent practice authority. State scope-of-pr...

Primary care clinicians have made significant changes to their practice since the Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices revised its adult and pediatric vaccine recommendations, according to new...

Populations around the world are aging, and fast. Here in the United States, not only is the population getting older, but it’s doing so in the shadow of

US life expectancy is shorter than in other high-income countries, and the gap has widened over time.

In the absence of a national health workforce strategy in the United States, individual states, including Missouri, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, have developed and implemented state-level graduate m...

Substantial changes in cannabis policies are occurring globally; however, the impacts of these reforms on cannabis use, as well as downstream effects on other substance use, remain unclear.

Public health has become remarkably good at mapping geographic disparities in health. Color-coded maps of infant mortality, childhood lead exposure,

More than 2.3 million women of reproductive age live in maternity care deserts — counties with no hospitals offering obstetric care and no OB-GYN or certified nurse-midwife in practice.

It is important to rigorously assess whether SNAP restrictions on foods yield meaningful benefits to diet and health. Yet evaluation faces numerous challenges.

Using estimates from RAND Health, our new Data Dashboard shows at a high level how state Medicaid funds will be affected by changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Since passage of the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021, the United States has made significant investments in behavioral health crisis response systems,

Housing is a fundamental social determinant of health and is particularly amenable to policy intervention.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists have been adopted faster and more widely than any anti-obesity therapy prior.

Health equity depends on data equity: the representation of communities in the data used to identify disparities, target interventions, and hold systems accountable.

Since the early 1960s, US policymakers have sought to assist persons living with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) and persons living with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI) ...

For almost 40 years, Janice cared for Vincent, her son with a developmental disability, at their home in upstate New York.

In her latest post, Debra Lubar discusses how unexpected, large medical bills can upend finances for many families.

Since the early 1960s, US policymakers have sought to assist persons living with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) and persons living with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI) to live on a human scale with their clinical and service needs met in their communities.

Emergency medical services (EMS) are basic lifesaving infrastructure for any community.

The criminal justice system's influence on health includes not only direct physical harm, but also chronic stress, mental health crises, infectious disease transmission, and the erosion of community…

Racial equity impact assessments (REIAs) are used by local governments to integrate equity considerations into policymaking and decision-making processes by evaluating potential impacts of proposed le...

The 1992 340B Drug Pricing Program (“340B”) started as a narrowly focused program aimed at Public Health Service Act–funded clinics and public hospitals. Today 340B includes two-thirds of all nonprofi...

Health equity depends on data equity: the representation of communities in the data used to identify disparities, target interventions, and hold systems accountable.

That most states have exceeded their cost growth targets is not evidence that the targets have failed—it is evidence that complementary policies are needed to address the cost drivers that the target ...

The fragmented multi-payer system in the United States creates powerful disincentives against the evidence-based interventions most likely to improve health and control costs: universal, prevention-ce...

That most states have exceeded their cost growth targets is not evidence that the targets have failed—it is evidence that complementary policies are needed to address the cost drivers that the target ...

Working-age mortality rates are rising and vary widely by state. A growing body of evidence suggests that polarized state policy environments may contribute to these trends. Join us for a Milbank Quar...

Policy Points Rural communities have more limited access to medical care and worse health outcomes. Existing federal and state policies largely fall short in addressing rural access disparities. ...

When I arrived in Geneva for the World Health Assembly in late May, the World Health Organization (WHO) was scrambling to contain two extremely rare

When studying heat maps produced by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Department, and digging into the endless tables of data

News article: In this edited Q&A and video with Milbank’s Morgan McDonald, MD, Jeff Lunardi—then interim Medicaid director at Virginia’s Department of Medical Assistance Services (Cardinal Care)—share...

For more than three decades, I have worked alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during many of the world’s most consequential biological threats—from the containment of SARS-...

About 280,000 older adults experience the “Medicare Cliff” each year, becoming eligible for Medicare and losing Medicaid coverage when they turn age 65 years due to discontinuities in financial eligib...

One year ago in April, I walked off CDC’s campus for the last time, after spending over 20 years in the agency.

The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by President Trump on July 4, 2025 will cut $1 trillion from federal health care programs over the coming decade and cause 10 million individua...

Four decades ago, I and Gerald Markowitz published an article in the American Journal of Public Health that attracted a fair amount of attention. The article was about the history of the introduction ...

At the very end of the Clinton Administration, Republican Congresswoman JoAnne Emerson inserted a two-paragraph provision into the 2001 Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act. These paragr...

Policy Points This study examines the association between the implementation of Medicaid estate recovery and homeownership, home equity, and Medicaid enrollment among low-income adults. Estate re...

Abstract Health systems that invest in primary care have better and more equitable health outcomes. Yet primary care faces a crisis (characterized by