Health Management and Policy

Structural Racism Is Not an Exemption from Accountability

In February 2021, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) tweeted, “No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care?” The tweet was designed to promote a podcast that was ostensibly focused on structural racism yet did not include experts on the topic. The subsequent uproar highlighted the harm caused by deep intentional ignorance of the term structural racism, defined in the American Journal of Public Health as “policies and practices…that confer advantages on people considered White and ideologies that maintain these advantages, while simultaneously oppressing other racialized groups.” Read more

Treatment Barrier Falls, but More Remain for People with Opioid Issues

New Research from Thuy Nguyen

Policy shift could improve access to buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, but stigma and training still pose significant challenge. Read more

Even Small Bills for Health Insurance May Cause Healthy Low-Income People To Drop Coverage

New research from Betsy Cliff, Richard Hirth, and John Ayanian

Twenty dollars a month might not seem like a lot to pay for health insurance. But for people getting by on $15,000 a year, it’s enough to make some drop their coverage – especially if they’re healthy, a new study of Medicaid expansion participants in Michigan finds. Read more

Faculty Team Hopes to Galvanize Anti-Racism in Public Health Education

As public health faculty passionate about health equity, Melissa Creary and Paul Fleming have spent their careers observing the ways in which racism creates barriers to health for communities. Now, the pair are laying plans to make an impact on public health education through anti-racist teaching, beginning in their own backyard. Read more

How Countries on Five Continents Responded to the Pandemic, Helping Shape Future of Health Policy

Michigan Public Health professors Scott Greer and Elizabeth King and colleagues in Brazil analyzed early government responses from 34 countries on five continents to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic and how those decisions impacted their citizens’ health and lives. Read more

Menthol Cigarettes Linked to 10 Million Extra Smokers, Hundreds of Thousands of Premature Deaths

New Research from David Mendez

Menthol cigarettes contributed to 378,000 premature deaths in the United States between 1980 to 2018, according to a new University of Michigan study. Read more