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Health Care Policy
Reimagining the corner store to promote food justice
With a 2022 President’s Sustainability Prize, Eli Moraru and Alexandre Imbot will take raw ingredients payable with EBT and turn them into hot, heathy meals while providing nutritional education resources.
‘Abortion and Women’s Rights 1970’: A film that’s newly timely
Five decades ago, ahead of the landmark ruling Roe v. Wade, political scientist Mary Summers worked on a documentary film. That film is gaining new viewers through a recently launched website.
Solutions to mitigate climate change, from the IPCC
The latest assessment offers both a harsh reality check and a path forward. Experts William Braham, Peter Psarras, and Michael Mann offer their thoughts.
Higher rates of chemical sedation among Black psychiatric patients points to inequities
Penn Medicine researchers also find that white patients are more likely to be chemically sedated in emergency departments at hospitals that treat high proportion Black patients, suggesting that hospital demographics can impact practice patterns.
Creating global systems for evidence-informed oral health policy
Alonso Carrasco-Labra, who joined the School of Dental Medicine in 2021, is a leader in developing new policy and clinical guidelines across areas of medicine.
Anti-LGBTQ measures
Penn Law’s Tobias Wolff discusses the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill and a Texas directive on transgender children.
Why unions matter for nursing
A new study examines nursing’s relationship to union organizing and feminism, as well as the profession’s unique organizing challenges.
Four takeaways from the IPCC’s report on climate adaptation and vulnerability
The assessment gets explicit about the effect of climate change on people, places, and ecosystems. Experts from Penn weigh in on what it means.
Addressing substance use and pain key to limiting self-directed hospital discharge
A new study from the School of Nursing suggests that stigma toward persons with substance abuse disorder may account for an under-assessment and management of pain, which leads to self-directed patient discharges.
Past plagues, current pandemics, and public hygiene messaging
History Ph.D. candidate Sarah Xia Yu discusses her research on public hygiene in China and what the past might tell us about how governments could better communicate public health messages.
In the News
Mixed-status immigrant families have complex health insurance needs that require simple solutions
Diana Montoya-Williams of the Perelman School of Medicine wrote an opinion piece about the intersection of health insurance and immigration status. “Expanding insurance coverage to all children who live in our state—regardless of documentation status—would decrease confusion among mixed-status families, reduce administrative burden and costs associated with the verification of different eligibility requirements within families, and save public health dollars,” she said.
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N.J. kids on Medicaid deserve equal access to specialty care
Alycia Bischof of the School of Nursing advocated for a New Jersey bill that, if signed into law, would allow Medicaid patients to access specialty care without having to travel more than 60 minutes or file an appeal for out-of-network coverage.
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Pandemic relief bill fulfills Biden’s promise to expand Obamacare, for two years
PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel spoke about provisions within the coronavirus relief bill that expand subsidies for health insurance purchased under the Affordable Care Act. “For people that are eligible but not buying insurance it’s a financial issue, and so upping the subsidies is going to make the price point come down,” he said.
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Opinion: Would you want your parents to live in a nursing home owned by private equity?
Atul Gupta of the Wharton School co-led a study that explored how private equity investments affect nursing home patients. It revealed a 10% increase in mortality for Medicare patients in such facilities.
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Pandemic lessons in improving the medical system
Amol Navathe of the Perelman School of Medicine spoke about the high cost of health care in the U.S. “Our system is set up to produce a lot of health care but not necessarily a lot of health,” he said.
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How the pandemic is changing medicine
PIK Professor Jonathan D. Moreno and the Law School’s Stephen N. Xenakis wrote that the pandemic could change many countries’ approaches to public health. “The battle against the virus presents an opportunity to recalibrate our health care system as well as advance our practices,” they wrote.
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