A Health Podyssey

Each week, Health Affairs' Rob Lott brings you in-depth conversations with leading researchers and influencers shaping the big ideas in health policy and the health care industry. A Health Podyssey goes beyond the pages of the health policy journal Health Affairs to tell stories behind the research and share policy implications. Learn how academics and economists frame their research questions and journey to the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Health policy nerds rejoice! This podcast is for you.

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Episodes

Can climate change solutions be served with school lunches?

Subscribe to UnitedHealthcare's Community & State newsletter . Does America have a healthy relationship with food? In addition to the direct health effects of diet, food production and distribution affects environmental factors, which then trickles down to our health statuses. For example, an estimated one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions relate to food production . In a new paper published in the climate-centric December edition of Health Affairs , Mary Kathryn Poole, a PhD studen...

Dec 15, 2020•19 min•Ep. 11

When climate change impacts Indigenous identities, mental health suffers

Subscribe to UnitedHealthcare's Community & State newsletter . How are Indigenous communities responding to climate change? It’s an important but often under-looked question. As a new paper published in the climate-centric December edition of Health Affairs posits, Indigenous communities are uniquely vulnerable as climate-related events can impact their day-to-day lives, self-determination, and physical and emotional health. In 2016, the Pala Band of Mission Indians tribe, who are located in...

Dec 08, 2020•26 min•Ep. 10

'What are we going to do about it?': An essay on racism and health inequities

Subscribe to UnitedHealthcare's Community & State newsletter . Brooke Cunningham is a general internist, sociologist, and assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota. After George Floyd's killing, she wrote and published a Narrative Matters essay in Health Affairs on how the health effects of racism become embodied for her and other Black Americans. On this episode of A Health Podyssey, Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil ...

Dec 01, 2020•36 min•Ep. 9

Ensuring equitable access to a COVID-19 vaccine once it's here

Subscribe to UnitedHealthcare's Community & State newsletter . In November, the pharma companies Pfizer and Moderna both announced substantial progress on a potential COVID-19 vaccine. While both vaccines showed promising results during clinical trials, questions remain for what's next and how to distribute a vaccine once it's available for public use. One major question mark concerns logistics. For example, the Pfizer vaccine needs to be kept at extremely cold temperatures while traveling t...

Nov 24, 2020•26 min•Ep. 8

What Milwaukee tells us about COVID-19 and its impact on race

Subscribe to UnitedHealthcare's Community & State newsletter . New York City was an initial focal point for COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S. with the virus then quickly spreading across the country. With time, data, and analysis, researchers are learning more about how the novel coronavirus is affecting different swaths of the U.S. population. Leonard Egede, division chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine and director of the Center for Advancing Popula...

Nov 17, 2020•22 min•Ep. 7

A first take on health policy after the 2020 election

Subscribe to UnitedHealthcare's Community & State newsletter . No matter which side of the aisle you sit, the 2020 U.S. presidential election has been as memorable as it's been remarkable. On November 4th — less than 24 hours after the final polls closed — Health Affairs' Alan Weil sat down with Kimberly Leonard, Senior Healthcare Reporter at Business Insider , and Shannon Muchmore, Editor at Healthcare Dive , to share his perspective on what the future of health policy may look like when th...

Nov 05, 2020•28 min•Ep. 5

Where a child grows up shapes their health

Subscribe to UnitedHealthcare's Community & State newsletter . We’ve long known that community resources — good schools, walkability, food security, etc. — affect opportunities for children’s health and behaviors to develop. But how do we measure these characteristics and use our knowledge to create better policy? In this episode of A Health Podyssey, Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Brandeis University’s Dr. Dolores Acevedo-Garcia to discuss her research on racial and eth...

Oct 27, 2020•25 min•Ep. 4

Education isn’t the only thing disrupted when schools close

Subscribe to UnitedHealthcare's Community & State newsletter . Schools and childcare centers quickly closed in reaction to COVID-19 in the spring of 2020 — and many remain closed or only provided remote services well into the fall. While school closures appear to slow the spread of the virus, for many children the health ramifications are far broader. Children who depend on schools for meals or special needs are suddenly at a loss when schools close. In this episode, Health Affairs Editor-in...

Oct 20, 2020•20 min•Ep. 3

How new pediatric programs take root and grow

Subscribe to UnitedHealthcare's Community & State newsletter . How do you take a good idea — like screening children to see if they're on a healthy developmental trajectory — and get that idea adopted by thousands of small separate pediatric practices spread across a state or the entire country? The answer is collaboration and leadership. Vermont Child Health Improvement Program (VCHIP) is a pediatric program run by the University of Vermont to help pediatric providers, payers, and policy ma...

Oct 13, 2020•30 min•Ep. 2

Improving teen driver safety with virtual driving assessments

Subscribe to UnitedHealthcare's Community & State newsletter . Tragically, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of adolescent mortality and injury in the United States with new, inexperienced drivers at particular risk. The risk is under-recognized in health care. One way forward could be virtual driving simulations. Recently, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, through its spun out business Diagnostic Driving, partnered with the state of Ohio to assess a virtual driving simulati...

Oct 06, 2020•36 min•Ep. 1

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