Featured series 
Tag: Health Care Policy
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Nation & World
Implantable chips bear promise, but privacy standards needed
Writing in the July 28, 2005 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, John Halamka, M.D., chief information officer at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School and an emergency room…
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Nation & World
Social determinants key in who gets good care
Kerala is one of the poorer states in India, and yet it enjoys India’s highest life expectancy and lowest infant mortality rates. This seeming anomaly has caused many to wonder…
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Nation & World
Older doctors less likely to follow current standards of care
The study included a review of previously published papers with a large sample size of doctors. These studies included measures of physician knowledge or quality of care as well as…
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Nation & World
Study casts doubt on claims that the medical malpractice system is plagued by frivolous lawsuits
The debate over medical malpractice litigation, which raged during the last presidential campaign, continues as a hot-button political and health care issue in the U.S. The Senate is expected to…
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Nation & World
Researchers find high levels of potentially toxic heavy metals in herbal medicine products
“This study, yet again, highlights the need for Congress to revisit the way dietary supplements are regulated in the U.S.,” said co- author David Eisenberg, MD, the Bernard Osher Associate…
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Nation & World
Study finds that blacks are significantly less likely to undergo prostate cancer screening
In a study involving more than 67,000 men age 65 years and older, the researchers found that blacks were 35 percent less likely than whites to undergo prostate-specific antigen (PSA)…
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Nation & World
For-profit health plans did not restrict Medicare beneficiaries’ use of high-cost operative procedures
Testing the hypothesis that rates of use of 12 high-cost procedures would be lower in for-profit health plans than in not-for-profit plans, researchers analyzed Medicare HEDIS (Health Plan Employer Data…
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Nation & World
Strategies to help AIDS patients take medicines are cost effective
The effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection depends on how well patients adhere to complicated drug regimens. Researchers found that among patients with lower levels of adherence to their…
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Nation & World
Physicians report trouble obtaining specialty services for uninsured
A research team surveyed more than 2,000 physicians at U.S. academic health centers who had provided direct patient care during the preceding year. Among the questions asked were whether the…
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Nation & World
Study challenges proposed changes to clinical definition of mental illness
As the American Psychiatric Association prepares for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’s fifth edition, there is debate over whether to eliminate milder forms of diseases to prevent…
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Nation & World
Study shows U.S. health care paperwork cost $294.3 billion in 1999
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canada’s quasi-official health statistics agency, analyzed the administrative costs of health insurers, employers’ health benefit programs, hospitals, nursing…
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Nation & World
Physicians say they have personally experienced medical errors
A nationwide survey examined the views of 831 physicians in April-July 2002 and 1,207 adults in April-June 2002. Some 42 percent of the public and more than one-third of U.S.…
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Nation & World
Three in five Americans would get vaccinated for smallpox
Substantial public interest in receiving a smallpox vaccination grows in part from continuing fears about a future bioterrorist attack. Nine months after the September 11th attacks, more than four in…
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Nation & World
Physicians who are experts on managed care avoid enrolling in HMOs
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and RAND surveyed 279 professors at 17 universities across the country who were prominent experts in managed care to find out their…
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Nation & World
Physicians vs. the Internet
Each day, about 7.5 million people in the United States use the Internet to get health information, while less than 3 million consult their doctors. Of the 110 million Americans…
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Nation & World
SPH professor finds Taliban inmates dying, in need of care
Jennifer Leaning is a professor in the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Population and International Health. She is also one of Physicians for Human Rights’ founders. In January…
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Nation & World
Tuning the system: Program buffers health care collisions
The Health Care Negotiation and Conflict Resolution program at the Harvard School of Public Health, led by Leonard Marcus, trains health care professionals to minimize the conflicts that inevitably arise.…
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Nation & World
User fees have unintended effect of decreasing health care access for poor
The reform of health care systems is supposed to make access to health care better. But in the particular case of user fees, the opposite effect was observed. During the…
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Nation & World
WHO report reviews world mental health care
Since the mid-1970s, World Health Organization policies have encouraged integrating mental health services into primary care settings. But no one knows what, if anything, might be working to help those…
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Nation & World
Medicaid coverage for anti-AIDS drugs would be cost effective
It’s long been said that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” A new study from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis applies the principle to treating…
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Nation & World
Study finds parents of chronically ill children avoid switching to HMOs
The incentive to switch health plans is usually a lower cost to the patient. So if parents of chronically ill children want to retain their old health plans instead of…
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Nation & World
Medicare rules restrict good care for dying patients
Many health care providers believe that Medicare regulations block them from providing good care to dying patients. Researchers from Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Public Health, and RAND…
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Nation & World
Strict enforcement of lead-exposure-prevention policies shows clear benefits
Even at low levels, lead poisoning in children can cause IQ deficiencies, reading and learning disabilities, impaired hearing, reduced attention spans, hyperactivity and other behavior problems. Children who live in…
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Nation & World
Medicare patients give higher overall marks to nonprofit health plans
The first large-scale national study that examines the relationship between health plan characteristics and patient ratings of their plan found that Medicare patients prefer not-for-profit or local plans over for-profit…
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Nation & World
Nearly half of college students used tobacco in one-year period
In 2000, nearly one-half of college students reported using tobacco products in the previous year. By including the use of cigars and smokeless tobacco, a study found a greater prevalence…
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Nation & World
Paying attention to attention: How active is hyperactive?
McLean Hospital researcher Martin Teicher and his team believe that the surest way to separate youngsters who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from those with other problems is to…