The Dartmouth Atlas Project finds striking geographic differences among Medicare patients undergoing elective procedures like back surgery, even in neighboring regions with similar populations. Why? Patient preferences often take a back seat to clinician opinions.
Read the nine new regional reports
The Dartmouth Atlas Project documents often glaring regional variations in how medical resources are distributed and used. Its recent report series emphasizes the role of patients working with providers to make shared decisions.
Mastectomy rates range from 0.3 per 1,000 patients in San Francisco area, to 2.3 in Grand Forks, N.D.
Philadelphia, NYC, Mississippi, and California all have shown recent declines in childhood obesity rates. Promoting healthy eating and physical activity in schools and communities has helped make a difference.
Learn how these cities and states are fighting childhood obesity
While many cities and states are working to address childhood obesity, Philadelphia, New York City, Mississippi, and California have emerged as leaders. These places are making sweeping changes to make healthy foods available in schools and communities and integrate physical activity into people's daily lives. To date, Philadelphia is the only place that has reported making major progress to reduce disparities among African American and Hispanic youths.
The drops are small, just 5 percent here in Philadelphia and 3 percent in Los Angeles. But experts say they are significant because they offer the first indication that the obesity epidemic, one of the nation’s most intractable health problems, may actually be reversing course.”
The New York Times, in an article titled "Obesity in Young is Seen as Falling in Several Cities."
Your ZIP code shouldn't determine your life expectancy. Around the country a growing number of leaders are coming together to create healthier communities. The challenge is to figure out what exactly makes a community healthy and what specific local changes will lead to the most dramatic health improvements.
Read more about creating healthy communities
At the GOVERNING Summit on Healthy Living, policy makers are discussing how policy, programs, data and design can merge to create healthier communities.
In the end, cities and states that improve their health rankings will win more than just a moral victory for a better quality of life for their citizens; they'll get a leg up in the global competition for jobs.”
The coalitions are the recipients of $3.6 million in Roadmaps to Health Community Grants—up to $200,000 each—from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The coalitions are tasked with creating healthier places to live, learn, work, and play.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allows states to expand their Medicaid programs to cover all adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, and calls for the federal government to pay 100 percent of the costs of expansion during the first three years. In a Health Affairs blog post, Andrew Hyman, JD, RWJF coverage team director, and State Health Reform Assistance Network Director Heather Howard describe a new tool to help states gauge the full fiscal impact of expansion.
Read moreThe drivers of growth in health care costs are complex; no single driver is responsible for high and increasing costs, the authors suggest. To meet this challenge, no single solution will be sufficient.
Read the report View all research
While it’s known that education leads to better jobs and higher income, research also shows strong links between education and longevity, reduced risk of illness, and increased vitality and school success for future generations. Yet, changing demographic trends and rising college costs portend poorly for health.
This brief examines the role that education plays in health and finds that:
Get critical local, state and federal government information and research.
Throughout the country, people are coming together with a shared vision, strong leadership, and commitment to making needed and lasting changes that broadly improve community vitality. The Roadmaps to Health Prize is intended to honor these successful efforts and to inspire and stimulate similar activities in communities across the country.