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.
Karl Lorenz, a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, discusses how to improve palliative care training for health practitioners and better engage patients in the health care decisionmaking process.
In this January 2013 Congressional Briefing, Jordan Fischbach discusses how RAND helped Louisiana develop its 2012 Coastal Master Plan and key lessons that can make other communities more resilient in the face of natural disasters.
In this December 2012 Congressional Briefing, Amelia Haviland presents the results of several RAND studies on cost and quality in consumer-directed health plans, including how a switch to such plans may affect the quality of health care for participating families.
On July 18, 2012, Ian Coulter, who holds the Samueli Institute Chair in Policy for Integrative Medicine at RAND, was joined by fellow experts in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to discuss patient use of CAM and how hospitals, universities, and the U.S. military are integrating CAM into traditional medical practices throughout the United States.
In this July 2012 Congressional Briefing, researchers from the RAND Drug Policy Research Center discuss marijuana legalization, how it differs from decriminalization, its possible consequences, and federal response to state initiatives.
In this Resilient Communities podcast, we hear from Heather Schwartz, a policy researcher based in RAND's New Orleans office who studies the effects of integrating low- and middle-income families on the school experiences of children from low-income families.
In this Resilient Communities podcast, Jennifer Steele discusses the differences in policies and practices between charter and traditional schools in New Orleans, where charter-based reform spread in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
“Consumer-directed” health plans (CDHPs), with high deductibles and low monthly premiums, are thought to limit health care spending by tying costs to patients' care. Consumers switching to a CDHP appear to make significant reductions in their spending, but may also be skipping high-value preventive care.
In this Resilient Communities podcast, Jordan R. Fischbach discusses recent research that has helped the city of New Orleans address the challenge of reducing flood risk and is relevant to many other coastal communities that are concerned with water resources, infrastructure planning, rising sea levels, and flooding.
New RAND research finds that eliminating the requirement that all Americans have health insurance would sharply lower the number of people gaining coverage, but would not dramatically increase the cost of buying policies through new insurance exchanges. RAND Economist Christine Eibner discusses the ramifications.
Between 1999 and 2009, U.S. health care spending nearly doubled, climbing from $1.3 trillion to $2.5 trillion. The figures are striking, but what have they meant for individual Americans?
An interactive graphic shows four major global trends through 2050: the shifts in working-age populations, the rise of the oldest old, elderly dependency ratios, and youth dependency ratios.
In this interview, Alireza Nader discusses Iran's threats to close the Strait of Hormuz to warn the international community not to enforce sanctions and to demonstrate to Iran's population that it is strong. He also discusses his new report on what drives the rivalry between Israel and Iran.
In this December 2011 Congressional Briefing, Gery Ryan discusses policy options and recommendations on how to most effectively fund HIV treatment initiatives throughout the world.
In this Resilient Communities podcast, Admiral Thad Allen discusses the critical questions confronting the field of community resilience as well as a new toolkit developed by RAND researchers to support community disaster planning.
The RAND Bing Center for Health Economics, RAND Labor and Population, and the Journal of Human Capital held a two-day Conference on Health, Aging, and Human Capital. Speakers included RAND's Nicole Maestas, NYU's Michael Grossman, and Harvard's David Wise; all conference videos are available online.
In this December 2011 Congressional Briefing, Katherine Watkins discusses the VA's capacity to deliver care to veterans with mental health and substance use disorders and the quality of the care that is delivered. This congressionally mandated study is the first comprehensive look at the full spectrum of clinical services provided to veterans with mental health issues.
At this November 2011 Policy Forum, Jonathan Schleifer, policy director for Iraq Afghanistan Veterans of America, joined RAND's Terry Schell for a discussion about the challenges faced by and experiences of recent combat veterans.
In this October 2011 Congressional Briefing, Art Kellermann presents a breakdown of how U.S. health care cost growth directly affects the finances of a typical American family.
Madeline Di Nonno, executive director for the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and Rebecca Collins, a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation, discuss how media images of girls influence how they see themselves and whether portrayals of sex in popular music, television, and film influence behavior.
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