RAND advances understanding of health and health behaviors and examines how the organization and financing of care affect costs, quality, and access. RAND's body of research—conducted primarily through the RAND Health division—includes innovative studies of health insurance, health care reform, health information technology, and women's health, as well as topical concerns such as obesity, complementary and alternative medicine, and PTSD in veterans and survivors of catastrophe.
With the complex process of implementing the ACA underway, RAND research is tracking the progress of implementation and assessing the potential consequences of choices facing federal and state governments, employers, families, and individuals.
In its second term, the Obama Administration can restrain further health care spending growth—without compromising quality—by employing four broad strategies: fostering efficient and accountable providers, engaging and empowering consumers, promoting population health, and facilitating high-value innovation.
Commentary
An ample body of evidence indicates that the benefits of keeping a gun for protection are substantially outweighed by the associated risks, writes Art Kellermann.
Commentary
When it comes to women's health, cancer gets a good deal of the attention; somehow, it hasn’t fully registered that so many of our mothers, sisters, friends and daughters are being affected by another, often silent killer, writes Chloe E. Bird.
Report
The authors identified and characterized population groups that would likely be interested in enrolling in the multistate plans established by the Affordable Care Act and developed a methodology to project participation and estimate premiums.
Report
Simultaneous developmental delays among young children and depression among parents can create serious challenges for many families. However, results from the Helping Families Raise Healthy Children initiative suggest that aligning early intervention and behavioral health systems can help.
News Release
Lowering the costs of healthy foods in supermarkets increases the amount of fruits, vegetables, and whole grain foods that people eat, while also appearing to reduce consumption of nutritionally less-desirable foods.
Research Brief
The Helping Families Raise Healthy Children initiative addressed depression among parents of children with early childhood developmental delays, aligning the early intervention and behavioral health systems with a focus on relationship-based care.
Journal Article
Lowering the costs of healthy foods in supermarkets increases the amount of fruits, vegetables, and whole grain foods that people eat, while also appearing to reduce consumption of nutritionally less-desirable foods.
Blog
If a medical treatment worked only a fraction of the time and resulted in bad outcomes more often than not, practitioners would not make this treatment the default approach. Yet that is exactly what has happened when it comes to CPR for individuals 85 years and older who suffer cardiac arrest in a community setting.
Journal Article
Women living in more compact communities had a lower probability of experiencing a coronary heart disease (CHD) event or dying as a result of CHD.
Commentary
New York should see the judge's ruling as an opportunity to revise the law to close the loopholes, including the Big Gulp exemption, and develop regulations in line with the scientific consensus that even 16 ounces is way too much, writes Deborah Cohen.
Commentary
In this fiscally uncertain climate, we should continue to leverage the dual-use benefit of bioterrorism investments by building and maintaining those routine (but essential) public health capabilities that can also be used in response to a variety of public health emergencies.
Commentary
The combined effects of having potentially employable individuals receive SSDI benefits, and the loss of skills among those who are denied benefits, are significant, write Nicole Maestas and Kathleen Mullen.
Commentary
The act of caring for a veteran takes a physical, mental, and economic toll on caregivers and their families. Giving caregivers the skills and resources they need to cope and thrive should be as much a priority as giving veterans medical care.
News Release
Spouses, family members, and others who provide informal care to U.S. military members after they return home from conflict often toil long hours with little support, putting them at risk for physical, emotional, and financial harm.
Report
Spouses, family members, and others who provide informal care to U.S. military members after they return home from conflict often toil long hours with little support, putting them at risk for physical, emotional, and financial harm.
Blog
RAND is helping its hometown of Santa Monica, Calif., become the first city in America to use a measurement of overall wellbeing to drive public policy.
Journal Article
Motivational interviewing (MI) is an intervention approach that has solid evidence of efficacy with substance use disorders.
Journal Article
In this chapter, we present the PBOA instruments that have been used to determine outcomes in acupuncture clinical research, and highlight measures that are feasible, practical, economical, reliable, valid, and responsive to clinical change.
Journal Article
The objective of this study was to describe our experience in reducing quality-of-care disparities among Puerto Rican children with asthma by adapting 2 existing evidence-based asthma interventions.
Journal Article
There are large racial disparities in the use of mental health care. But they are not explained by different treatment preferences across ethnic and racial groups.
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