RAND Health Quarterly

RAND Health Quarterly is an online journal that showcases the breadth and depth of RAND's health-related research. Our work spans a wide range of topics each year, including health policy and health economics; health care delivery, quality, and patient safety; clinical care; global health; mental health; health promotion and disease prevention; public health and emergency preparedness; military health; research methods; and science policy.

RAND Health Quarterly also facilitates access to our work for scholars using PubMed to identify top-quality research relevant to their question or interest.

In This Issue: 2022, Vol. 10, No. 1

  • Letter from the Editor, 2022, Vol. 10, No. 1

    Letter from the editor for the first issue of Volume 10, 2022.

  • Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorder Bed Capacity, Need, and Shortage Estimates in Sacramento County, California

    Sacramento County, like other counties in the United States, has sought to assess shortages in psychiatric and SUD treatment beds. Using an array of data sets and findings from the literature, as well as a survey of treatment facilities, the authors estimated psychiatric and SUD treatment bed need and capacity in the county—at each level of care—for adults and children/adolescents and identified difficult-to-place populations.

  • The Burden of Respiratory Syncytial Virus: Understanding Impacts on the NHS, Society and Economy

    Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a significant burden on the healthcare system and on children and their parents and caregivers. We estimate RSV in children under 5 in the UK costs £80 million each year: £14 million of productivity losses, £1.5 million of out-of-pocket expenses for parents/carers, and £65 million of healthcare costs.

  • Expanding Insurance Coverage to Undocumented Immigrants in Connecticut

    Policymakers in Connecticut are considering various state-funded policy options to improve insurance coverage among undocumented and legally present recent immigrants in the state—almost 60 percent of whom lack health insurance. The authors use the RAND Corporation's COMPARE microsimulation model to estimate the impacts of each policy scenario on premiums, state spending, and hospital spending on uncompensated care.

  • Imputation of Race and Ethnicity in Health Insurance Marketplace Enrollment Data, 2015–2022 Open Enrollment Periods

    Information on the race and ethnicity of individuals enrolled through the Health Insurance Marketplace is critical for assessing past enrollment efforts and determining whether outreach campaigns should be modified. This article presents the results of imputing race and ethnicity for HealthCare.gov Marketplace enrollees from 2015 through 2022 with an approach that uses surnames, first names, and addresses to estimate race and ethnicity.

  • Prices Paid to Hospitals by Private Health Plans: Findings from Round 4 of an Employer-Led Transparency Initiative

    Because employer-sponsored spending comes from employee wages and benefits, employers have a fiduciary responsibility to administer benefits in the interest of participants. The lack of transparency of prices in the health care market limits the ability of employers to knowledgeably develop or implement benefit design decisions. This article is designed to allow an easy comparison of hospital prices using a single metric.

  • Availability and Accessibility of Mental Health Services in New York City

    Mental health services provide essential supports to people living with psychiatric disorders. However, in the United States as a whole and in New York City in particular, the use of mental health services is low and care is not equitably distributed. To advance policy strategy for addressing gaps in the mental health services system, RAND researchers investigate the availability and accessibility of mental health services in New York City.

  • Evaluation of Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health's 2020–2021 L.A. Dodgers Mental Health Campaign

    This article presents an evaluation of a Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health campaign with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020 and 2021 that focuses on the prevention of and early intervention for mental health challenges—an effort specifically aimed at the team's extensive Hispanic fan base. This group is a key county demographic with attitudes toward mental illness that sometimes differ from those of other ethnic groups.

  • Programs for Care System Transitions in Mental Health: A Systematic Review

    Transitions between health care systems can be especially complicated when patients with mental health conditions leave an integrated system, such as the Military Health System (MHS), and are required to manage their own care until they enter a new system. Considering how to navigate such transitions, the authors synthesize the evidence across existing evaluations.

  • The Impact of Mindfulness Meditation Programs on Performance-Related Outcomes: Implications for the U.S. Army

    This article presents results from a systematic review and meta-analyses of research examining how mindfulness meditation affects 13 performance-related outcomes of interest to the U.S. Army and broader military. The authors supplemented the systematic review by examining how mindfulness meditation could support stress management and exploring characteristics of selected mindfulness programs.

  • Physical Fitness Standards to Support Readiness and Deployability: An Examination of Department of the Air Force Policies and Culture

    To ensure its service members have the requisite physical fitness to serve, the Department of the Air Force has established a variety of medical and physical standards. The authors analyze Tier 1 fitness assessment (FA) data to determine whether the FA components meet their intended purpose to minimize health risks and maximize readiness of airmen, and the authors also examine perceptions about fitness policies and the culture of fitness.

RAND Health Quarterly is produced by the RAND Corporation. ISSN 2162-8254.