Breaking Links in the Chain of Racial Disparities for COVID-19
The burden of COVID-19 in the United States has fallen disproportionately on Black and Hispanic/Latino individuals. More
Blog
New Alzheimer’s drug may burden state budgets
State budgets are already being squeezed by rising health care costs, leaving less for public health and social spending. How will the cost of new Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm impact Medicaid costs and state budgets? More
Higher prices drove up Medicare drug spending, advisers say
It was not due to higher volumes of filled prescriptions. More
How Patent Extensions Keep Some Drug Costs High
The Biden administration has a chance to help curb drug costs in naming a new patent office director, some experts say. More
What If Doctors Are Always Watching, but Never There?
Remote technology could save lives by monitoring health from home or outside the hospital. It could also push patients and health care providers further apart. More
COVID Hits Home
To some, the pandemic is a distant thing. The deaths of hundreds of thousands can feel unreal and even impossible to comprehend. That is, until COVID hits home. More
Podcast: Upward Immobility with Mary T Bassett and Nancy Krieger
The ideas, research, and actions from across Harvard University aimed at creating equitable opportunities for success and prosperity. More
‘As a Black, Gay Physician, I’ve Survived In America By Embracing My Anger’
After matriculating into medical school in the fall of 2013, I was drowning. It seemed that who I was—a Black, gay man—could not exist within the medical system. More
RIP Medical Debt Works with Ballad Health to Abolish Over $277M of Medical Debt
Ballad Health and RIP Medical Debt (RIP) announced today a new agreement that will eliminate $277,974,370.31 million worth of non-governmental payer medical debt (i.e., non-Medicare/Medicaid) for approximately 82,000 people previously served by Ballad Health. More
Trump’s FDA commissioner takes job at Moderna backer
Stephen Hahn joins Flagship Pioneering, which launched Moderna a decade ago and made billions from its coronavirus vaccine. More
Some Hospitals Kept Suing Patients Over Medical Debt Through the Pandemic
Court actions by hospitals to collect patient debt dropped sharply during the pandemic. But a new study says some of the nation’s largest hospital systems kept filing lawsuits, liens and garnishments — and most were nonprofit. More
Early Hospital Compliance With Federal Requirements for Price Transparency
This cross-sectional study assesses compliance within a random sample of hospitals with a federal rule requiring hospitals to disclose the prices they negotiate with insurers. More
New AMA policy opposes “excited delirium” diagnosis
A policy adopted by physicians, residents, and medical students at the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Special Meeting of its House of Delegates (HOD) opposes “excited delirium” as a medical diagnosis and warns against the use of certain pharmacological interventions solely for a law enforcement purpose without a legitimate medical reason. More
Race and health care collide in revealing American Medical Association controversy
The AMA's new push to grapple with health equity highlights a growing consciousness. And it's complicated. More
FDA approval of new Alzheimer’s drug sets a dangerous precedent
The FDA's approval of a new Alzheimer's treatment has significant implications for future drug trials, health system costs, patient safety, and conflicts of interest. More
The past 2 decades have seen dramatic rise in elderly taking drugs that can lead to falls
A study also found the rate of death caused by falls in older adults more than doubled during the same time period. But more research is needed to understand why. More
Evidence for statins in people over 70
Statins have not been proven to increase survival in the combined primary and secondary prevention population of people over 70. More
Time has arrived for Atlanta leaders to eliminate systemic racism, healthcare disparities
In 2021, the Lown Institute, an independent think tank, released a ranking system for U.S. hospitals’ on the degree to which they are adequately caring for the lower income and patients of color. Sadly, only two Atlanta metro area hospitals ranked in the top 100 for racial inclusivity, Grady Memorial Hospital and Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center and Emory University Hospital Midtown. This is likely a function of their location in downtown Atlanta rather than an actual strategy to address racial inclusivity and health equity. More
If vaccine apartheid exists, vaccine billionaires shouldn’t
Vaccine profits have minted new pandemic billionaires. Only 0.3% of vaccine doses have been given in low-income countries. That's wrong. More
Humanism Before Heroism in Medicine
During the COVID-19 pandemic, heroic clinician narratives have been a prominent feature of media coverage. Health care professionals who worked ceaselessly in intensive care units, sacrificed time with their families to travel to severely affected areas to care for patients with COVID-19, and put themselves in harm’s way have been acknowledged and rightly celebrated. More