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.
NEWS RELEASE
If prevention researchers build programs with developmentally relevant content, and provide this content in an engaging, confidential, and non-judgmental way, it can help middle school-aged children avoid alcohol.
NEWS RELEASE
Rules that allow some small employers to avoid regulation under the federal Affordable Care Act are unlikely to have a major impact on the future cost of health insurance unless those rules are relaxed to allow more businesses to opt out.
NEWS RELEASE
The financial burden Americans face paying out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs has declined, although prescription costs remain a significant challenge for people with lower incomes and those with public insurance.
REPORT
A first systematic picture of United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) leaders' views of priorities and approaches regarding sustainable development (SD). Survey and interview responses are drawn on to show the importance of SD and ways forward.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Reports the results of interviews with primary care providers and specialist reviewers about the implementation of eReferral, an electronic referral system that creates direct communication between referring and specialty providers.
REPORT
The study reports on the evidence and potential for use of 'emergency readmissions within 28 days of discharge from hospital' as an indicator within the NHS Outcomes Framework, drawing on a rapid review of systematic reviews.
PROJECT
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released a free toolkit designed to guide hospitals in using the AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators and Inpatient Quality Indicators to improve hospital performance. A RAND Health team, in partnership with UHC, developed and field-tested the toolkit.
REPORT
An expert panel was convened to develop a working knowledge base about the use of new media (such as the Internet, social networking sites, cell phones, online video games, and MP3 players) among adolescents and the potential impact on their sexual health and also to identify appropriate measures for assessing this use, thus setting the stage for future research and intervention.
EVENT
RAND Summer Institute is an annual event sponsored by the RAND Labor and Population Center for the Study of Aging; RSI's two conferences on aging are sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research and convene in Santa Monica.
PERIODICAL
Stories discuss world demographic trends, Afghan peace prospects, U.S. health care spending, California prisoner reentry, Latin American inequalities, global health, veterans' mental health, highway investments, teacher bonuses, and charter schools.
REPORT
Japanese translation of Support for Students Exposed to Trauma, including a series of teacher- or school counselor–led lessons aimed at reducing distress for middle school students who have been exposed to a traumatic life event. The program includes skill-building techniques geared toward changing maladaptive thoughts and promoting positive behaviors.
NEWS RELEASE
Promoting immunizations as a part of routine office-based medical practice is needed to improve adult vaccination rates, a highly effective way to curb the spread of diseases across communities, prevent needless illness and deaths, and lower health care costs.
REPORT
Promoting immunizations as a part of routine office-based medical practice is needed to improve adult vaccination rates, a highly effective way to curb the spread of diseases across communities, prevent needless illness and deaths, and lower health care costs.
REPORT
Climate change, water scarcity, and pandemics are examined for their national security implications and impacts on the global commons. This paper describes four clusters of policy approaches for these complex, interconnected issues and uses suggestive examples to build the case for policy evolution away from fixing problems and toward innovative alternatives, such as anti-fragile systems, that actually benefit from change and uncertainty.
REPORT
Safe Start Promising Approaches (SSPA) is the second phase of a community-based initiative focused on developing and fielding interventions to prevent and reduce the impact of children's exposure to violence. This report shares the results of SSPA, which was intended to implement and evaluate promising and evidence-based programs in 15 program sites across the country.
COMMENTARY
Most will agree with the undeniable fact that a new era in US medicine and US health care begins in less than 2 years. The key question is what potential measures should be monitored to determine both anticipated and unanticipated effects of the new law on the health of the US population, writes Robert H. Brook.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This study examined whether low scores of ethnic minority and other socio-demographic groups reflect their concentration in poorly performing primary care practices, and whether any remaining differences are consistent across practices.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Outdoor exercise equipment in parks seems to attract more new park users and result in a higher expenditure of energy.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The Affordable Care Act marks a new era in US health care and US medicine. This commentary suggests ways to monitor the act's effect on the health of the US population.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This is a commentary for an issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine presenting results from a survey of providers and staff participating in the Safety Net Medical Home Initiative. The commentary highlights the potential and challenges of medical homes.
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