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
Contaminated drinking water contributes to the deaths of some 750,000 children under the age of five every year due to diarrheal disease. A RAND project is using mobile phones to increase the sales and use of safe-water filters in Kenya.
Report
Emergency departments account for a rising proportion of hospital admissions and serve increasingly as an advanced diagnostic center for primary care physicians. While often targeted as the most expensive place to get medical care, emergency rooms remain an important safety net for Americans who cannot get care elsewhere.
News Release
Hospital emergency departments play a growing role in the U.S. health care system, accounting for a rising proportion of hospital admissions and serving increasingly as an advanced diagnostic center for primary care physicians.
Research Brief
This brief summarizes a RAND analysis of the role of that hospital emergency departments may come to play in either contributing to or reducing the rising costs of health care.
Commentary
Perhaps most tragic of all are the disasters that are wholly preventable: the deaths, maimings, and crushed livelihoods that result from human callousness or indifference, writes Jonah Blank.
Research Brief
This infographic presents findings from a RAND analysis of the economic and other effects of Medicaid expansion on the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Announcement
To celebrate our first 60 years, we created 60 Ways RAND Has Made a Difference, an online book to illustrate our most notable contributions. On our 65th birthday, we provide five of the most recent ways in which we at RAND are proud to have made a difference.
Research Brief
RAND Europe co-led an evaluation of 16 varied pilot projects initiated by the Department of Health (England) as a means to explore new ways of integrating patient care from different local provider.
Commentary
Having dealt with outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu and other communicable diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and H1N1 swine flu in 2009, health officials are now far better prepared to detect new diseases early and react quickly to monitor and contain their spread.
Report
This report summarizes four studies intended to help the Kurdistan Regional Government expand access to good education and health care, increase private-sector development, and design a data-collection system to support high-priority policies.
Report
This report summarizes four studies intended to help the Kurdistan Regional Government expand access to good education and health care, increase private-sector development, and design a data-collection system to support high-priority policies.
Report
Assesses to what extent the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response's Guidelines and associated Toolkit are reaching their intended users and achieving their intended goals.
News Release
The rising cost of Medicare can be cut through strategies such as increasing premiums and raising the eligibility age, but those moves could drive many elderly Americans from the program, leaving them with limited access to health services.
Journal Article
This study examined the association between individual (HIV risk) and structural (service access) factors and past year HIV testing.
Report
To support the English Department of Health's Academic Health Science Centres competition in 2013, RAND Europe has analysed various types of publicly available data and quality assessments in the domains of medical research and health education.
Journal Article
The goals of tobacco control endgame strategies are specified in terms of the desired levels of tobacco use and/or tobacco related health consequences.
Commentary
It is time for the government in partnership with industry to return to the drawing board to craft a plan that will provide protection for the more than 9 million people who will need care for dementia by 2040, writes Michael D. Hurd.
Blog
Community-based practitioners can improve their programs using Getting To Outcomes®, a toolkit, training, and onsite-support package which enhances their ability to prevent drug and alcohol use among youth.
Commentary
At the rate that the U.S. population is aging, the total cost of dementia could reach half a trillion dollars a year by 2040. Those who care for impaired relatives and friends are acutely aware of the effects of dementia, and unfortunately they are all too familiar with its costs, writes Kathleen J. Mullen.
Commentary
While a governor or legislator may disagree with Medicaid expansion for philosophical reasons, the claims that the expansion will be a burden on states' economies seem misguided given the full range of projected economic impacts on the states, writes Carter C. Price.
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