Between 2010 and 2012 I blogged weekly on population health topics at Improving Population Health: Ideas and Action . While some are dated, others remain relevant today
Is Population Health Finally Coming into Its Own?
Observations on the state of the field and rationale for beginning the blog itself
What is Population Health?
A blog background basic discussion of this concept
What are Population Health Outcomes?
A blog background discussion of the population health model underpinning the blog and why it is important to separate outcomes from determinants of these outcomes. A separate blog collection goes into the outcome dimension much more fully
What Are Population Health Determinants or Factors?
Similarly a blog background companion discussion of how we consider the determinants or factors that produce population health outcomes
Population Health Policies and Programs
A brief statement regarding the policy and program component of the background model
Population Health: If It’s Everything, Is It Nothing?
Is such a broad model too expansive to be useful? Is relative cost effectiveness the way to prioritize?
Obstacles to Population Health Policy: Is Anyone Accountable?
Since population health involves multiple determinants, difficult intersectoral work is required
Is Population Medicine Population Health?
Are Health Outcomes of an enrolled patient panel adequate?
More Perspectives on Population Medicine
Readers comment on the previous post
Population Health Outcomes
What are Population Health Outcomes?
A basic description of how outcomes fit into the overall population health model
Assessing Today’s Health… and Tomorrow’s
Why is it important to separate measuring health outcomes from the determinants of those outcomes
Which Outcomes Should We Improve?
There are many choices, and the decision reflects what we value
Is Chronic Disease Burden a Population Health Outcome?
In response to a reader query, we explore whether such a measure might be an “intermediate outcome”
Doing Well or Doing Better
Measuring improvement is harder than measuring achievement, but could be more important
Which Health Disparities Do We Want to Reduce?
Here we introduce the idea of multiple domains of disparity… race and ethnicity are very important, but not the only ones we have to worry about
Bending Health Disparity Curves
At what rate can disparity gaps by race, gender and education be reduced… and do they compete with each other?
Population Health Disparities: Rates or Burden?
High (or low) rates attract our attention, but how many persons are affected by the rates… the burden issue
IOM: Measurement for Accountability in Public Health
The IOM calls for a summary measure of population health to estimate the track health adjusted life expectancy for the United States
The IOM Reports on Investing in a Healthier Future
And later adds more specificity: adding by 2030 an average of approximately 1.33 years to the life expectancies of 50 year old women and 0.90 years to the life expectancies of 50 year old men – which is no easy tast
Population Health Targets: Unpopular But Needed
An argument that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”
The Multiple Determinants of Population Health
What are Health Factors or Determinants?
How do health determinants or factors fit into the population health model?
Is Lower Health Care Spending Good for our Health?
The good news… and the bad
Are We Individually Responsible for Our Health Behavior Choices?
To improve population health, we all need to make better health choices – but we also need to understand and remedy the economic and education upstream factors which determine the extent to which this is possible
Have You Heard of “Primordial Prevention”?
“Actions and measures that inhibit the emergence and establishment of environmental, economic, social and behavioral conditions as well as cultural patterns of living known to increase the risk of disease”
The Link Between Income and Health
How income affects health varies across communities
Will the Jobs Bill Impact Population Health?
Does empoyment impact health, or does health impact employment?
Peter Orszag Has It Half Right
The former OMB director argues that Medicaid spending spending increases into education budgets,… but this also impacts health as well
(How) Does Where You Live Get Under Your Skin?
Moving out of poor neighborhoods reduces obesity and blood sugar
Is There Synergy In Community Development Financing and Population Health?
Can $50 billion of priovate capital in improverished communities improve health as well?
Beyond Air and Water
A revieew of a special issue of health affairs on a wide variety of environmental health approaches
If Not Genetics, Then What?
Is genetics a modifiable population health determinant?
Can Our Environmental Stressors Be Inherited By Our Children?
The potential population health effects of epigentics
Population Health Resources
and Policy
Population Health Financing: Beyond Grants
Poor population health is sapping our national productivity and quality of life. We need to go beyond grants to identify sustainable resource flows that are up to magnitude of the challenge
Resources for Population Health Improvement: What About the Savings from Waste in Health Care?
Waste and inefficiency in our health care system are one potential souce for investing in the broader determinants of health. A fundemental population health challenge is to identify incentive structures and cross-sectoral allocation models to bring such possibilities into policy and practice
Where Would You Put the Money?
What we know and don’t know about the most cost effective population health investments
Modelling Long Run Cost and Outcomes
A review and critique of a promising population health investment model
A Population Health Opporunity Map
Fielding and Teutsch present a novel way of thinking of societal health investment across the lifecourse
Do We Need Population Health Shock Therapy?
Four goals for improving population health outcomes over the next decade
Ignoring Evidence and Economics at Our Peril
We cannot lower health care costs if we can’t examine cost effectiveness
Do We Need a Population Health Super-Integrator?
How might intersectoral collaboration be organized and financed?
Locally Customized Population Health Policy Packages?
Could be a set of local investment priorities be developed, covering all the determinants of health? They would be as broad as the global evidence allows, but tailored to a community’s strengths and weaknesses
Can We Find Political Common Ground to Improve Population Health?
If liberals and conservatives differ in some of the dominant moral foundations from which they inherently operate, we had better understand those differences more fully if we are going to find ways to work together to address our nation’s challenges, including the many policies relevant to population health improvement
Population Health 