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JANUARY 30, 2025 |
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Harvard Kennedy School | | | |
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Medical staff at a correctional facility in Cleveland, Mississippi, prepare to give prisoners a COVID-19 vaccination. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) | | |
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Fairness & justice |
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One way to save lives in jails |
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Incarcerated people need only receive “reasonably adequate” health care, per a 1976 Supreme Court ruling. But too often it is not even that, according to HKS Professor Marcella Alsan and HLS Professor Crystal Yang, who study health care in correctional facilities. In a first-of-its-kind study, Alsan and Yang conducted a trial with 44 jails over a four-year period to test ways to improve that level of care. They found that jails that undergo accreditation—like most hospitals do—saw a marked improvement in health care delivery and standards, a substantial decrease in deaths, and millions in cost savings.
Also read: Why do racial disparities in health care still exist?
Learn more about Fairness & Justice at HKS » | | |
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What we're watching |
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The Belfer Center’s MEI’s "Middle East Dialogues" are a series of events on the current conflicts in the region | | |
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Environment & energy |
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Averting a climate-driven global food crisis |
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The warning lights are blinking for the world’s food supply and, according to a recent open letter from 150 top experts, a “moonshot” effort will be needed to meet the demands of a global population projected to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050. In a new episode of PolicyCast, HKS Professor Wolfram Schlenker says meeting those goals amid the headwinds of climate change will require urgent policy fixes, including addressing declining research and development funding for new agricultural technologies and increasingly protectionist agricultural trade policies that could make climate-related food shocks more severe.
Also read: What Trump’s exit from the Paris Accords will mean, according to HKS professor Rob Stavins
Learn more about Environment & Energy at HKS » | | |
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What we're Reading |
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Nicholas Burns is returning to HKS after serving as U.S. envoy to China | | |
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Health |
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Should race be used in determining risk for disease? |
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Physicians often use variables such as age, gender, and lifestyle to predict disease risk. But whether to add race and ethnicity as factors is hotly debated among medical professionals. While there are studies suggesting this data improves the accuracy of predictive models, there is also concern these markers increase stigma. A team of researchers, including Professor Sharad Goel, Associate Professor Soroush Saghafian, and public policy PhD candidate Madison Coots, looked at the value of considering race in predicting breast cancer, lung cancer, and cardiovascular disease. In a recent Q&A, they talk about their study, which shows “that even when race adds predictive value, its clinical utility may be very small.”
Learn more about Health at HKS » | | |
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