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RAND advances understanding of health and health behaviors, and examines how the organization and financing of care affect costs, quality, and access. Our body of research includes innovative studies of health insurance, health care reform, and health information technology, as well as obesity, substance abuse, and PTSD. RAND findings also help inform policies that aim to improve the health of seniors and the care they receive.

Report

Health Care Resource Allocation Decisionmaking During a Pandemic

Jun 18, 2020

The Core Guidance Checklist can help health systems and policymakers make choices about how to allocate scarce but lifesaving resources—for patients and for health care workers—during the COVID-19 crisis.
Research Brief

How Would a Public Option on Health Insurance Affect Costs and Coverage?

May 28, 2020

Interest in a government-sponsored health insurance plan with publicly determined provider rates is growing. An analysis of four such public option plans finds that lower provider payment rates would lower premiums. But the effect on enrollees also depends on tax credits. And changes to the number of uninsured would be small.

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Journal Article

Journal Article

Research in Brief: Comprehensive Suicide Prevention in Law Enforcement

Any institution-from workplaces to schools to correctional settings to law enforcement agencies-seeking to prevent suicide must take a comprehensive approach. Science suggests that there are five components that define what such an approach looks like.

Jul 14, 2020
Report

Report

Strengthening the contribution of improvers to UK health and care? An evaluation of the Q Initiative 2016–2020

RAND Europe conducted an embedded evaluation of Q from 2016 to 2020. The findings have fed into the ongoing design of Q and have helped understand the impact of Q on its members and on the healthcare improvement landscape.

Jul 13, 2020
Periodical

Periodical

RAND Review: July-August 2020

Feature stories explore what research says about learning loss after extended school breaks; how stress and trauma affect individual and community health; and how a critical care surge response tool is helping hospitals during the pandemic.

Jul 13, 2020
Research Brief

Research Brief

Moving improvement forward in UK health and care: An evaluation of the Q Initiative 2016–2020

An embedded evaluation of the Health Foundation's Q Initiative was conducted by RAND Europe from 2016 to 2020. The findings of the evaluation demonstrate how Q has impacted its members and national healthcare improvement work.

Jul 13, 2020
Q&A

Balancing Public Health and Economic Effects of Physical Distancing: Q&A with Jonathan Welburn

Jonathan Welburn, an operations researcher at RAND, has spent years studying how economic shocks ripple outward like a contagion through the economy. He recently helped develop an online tool that policymakers can use to manage the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 interventions.

Jul 13, 2020
Blog

Online Shopping, Living in a Riskier World, Stress in Communities: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on Americans' online shopping habits during the pandemic, living in a riskier world, how stress builds in communities, and more.

Jul 10, 2020
Commentary

Patients Should Have a Role in Deciding the Value of Medicines

Patients, their family members, and the general public have historically been excluded from contributing to health care value assessment models. But methods for including patient voices in research are far less complicated or demanding than some researchers believe they will be.

Jul 10, 2020
Essay

The COVID Slide: How to Help Students Recover Learning Losses

Research shows that summer breaks contribute to income-based achievement and opportunity gaps for youth. How can we use what we know about summer learning to help kids in the age of COVID-19?

Jul 9, 2020
Commentary

A Tale of Two Americas

While a confluence of crises have spotlighted a dangerous divide, inequality in the United States has been increasing for decades, and cannot be undone in a hurry. There is no substitute for firm policy commitment over many years to address disparities in the basic aspects of life—education, health, jobs, financial and business participation, and justice.

Jul 9, 2020
Report

Which COVID-19 Models Are Useful to Policymakers?

Forecasting models are widely used to inform policymakers about the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of policy responses to it. As models are being developed and improved continually, a new RAND framework can assess which ones are suitable for the state of Virginia.

Jul 8, 2020
Essay

Stress Accumulates in Marginalized Communities, Generation After Generation

Psychologists and biologists have known for years that prolonged stress is toxic to the human body. A better understanding of how stress builds in communities—and the burden it puts on them—can lead to more effective policies to address it.

Jul 8, 2020
Report

Online Shopping: Many Americans' Habits Haven't Changed During COVID-19

Almost two-thirds of Americans haven't changed their online shopping habits since the pandemic began. About one-quarter are shopping online more, but 13 percent are actually shopping online less.

Jul 7, 2020
Journal Article

The State of the Science in Opioid Policy Research

The rigor of study design varies notably across policy categories, highlighting the need for broader adoption of rigorous methods in opioid policy research.

Jul 7, 2020
Research Brief

Research Brief

Investing in the Future of Health Care: A Strategic Assessment of Federally Funded Health Services Research and Primary Care Research

Health services research and primary care research portfolios funded by agencies have distinct focus areas, and most overlap is complementary, but there are gaps in research, driven by the complexity and pace of change in the U.S. health system.

Jul 7, 2020
Commentary

College in America Could Be Changed Forever

COVID-19 is threatening to upend the models that both public and private higher education depend on in the United States. As universities consider whether to postpone in-person classes until next year, many parents and students may be questioning the value of a traditional higher education.

Jul 7, 2020
Multimedia

What is Contact Tracing?

Ben Boudreaux, policy researcher with the RAND Corporation, describes how contact tracing can be used to track the spread of COVID-19 and explains the differences between manual and automated contact tracing.

Jul 7, 2020
Multimedia

The Unequal Nature of the Damage from COVID-19

Shanthi Nataraj, senior economist with the RAND Corporation, explains which communities and businesses have been hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jul 7, 2020
Report

Report

How small businesses are coping with the impact of COVID-19: Results from a survey in Turkey and the Middle East

SPARK, an NGO supporting young people with access to education and employment, commissioned RAND Europe to conduct a survey to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Middle East and Turkey.

Jul 6, 2020
Report

Report

Limb Salvage and Recovery After Severe Blast Injury: Eighth Department of Defense International State-of-the-Science Meeting on Blast Injury Research

Advances in medicine, protective equipment, and surgical reconstruction have led to questions about when to emphasize limb salvage over amputation for individuals with severe blast injuries. The authors summarize recent research on the topic.

Jul 6, 2020
Report

Building Community Resilience to Large Oil Spills

How can communities build resilience to large oil spills? This report examines the impact of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and how communities' resilience to similar threats could be improved.

Jul 6, 2020

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RAND Topic:
Health, Health Care, and Aging

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