Dear John,

Join us for our next edition of Policy Spotlight on Thursday, February 22, as we welcome back Micky Tripathi, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Homelessness And Substance Use Disorder 

In the February 2024 Housing & Health issue of Health Affairs, W. David Bradford and Felipe Lozano-Rojas of the University of Georgia calculate the effects of homelessness on substance use disorder (SUD)-related mortality.

The authors find that “reducing local homelessness rates from the seventy-fifth to the fiftieth percentile levels could have saved more than 1,900 lives from opioid overdoses across all metropolitan localities” in the final year of the study.

Bradford and Lozano-Rojas conclude that improving housing security could help address the SUD-related poisoning epidemic in the US, and that further research into the causal relationships between housing and poisoning mortality is needed.

To learn more about their findings, watch a video abstract featuring authors Bradford and Lozano-Rojas below.

Community & State is the business segment of UnitedHealthcare that provides health care coverage for the economically disadvantaged, the medically underserved and those without the benefit of employer-funded health plans. These state-based health plans meet local needs, while leveraging the national resources of UnitedHealthcare.

How Will Medicare Negotiate Drug Prices, And What Impact Will It Have?

Marc A. Rodwin and John D. Lantos

Knowing Actual Prices Will Help HHS Set The Maximum Fair Price Under The Inflation Reduction Act

Steven M. Lieberman and Paul B. Ginsburg

The centerpiece of the Health Affairs Insider Journal Club meeting in February is, “Housing-Sensitive Health Conditions Can Predict Poor Quality Housing.”

In the paper, the authors examine the relationship between unsafe housing and ill health, and explain a machine learning tool they developed to improve health-related building inspection targeting.

On February 26, please join author Daniel Neill of New York University for a detailed discussion of the paper’s data, methods, and policy implications. Health Affairs Senior Editor Laura Tollen will host.