The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Monday, November 8, 2021
Dear John,
In the November issue, authors continue to discuss outcomes of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Social Vulnerability & COVID-19
In one paper in the November issue, Elizabeth Tung and coauthors quantified associations of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage in Chicago, Illinois, with racial disparities in COVID-19 positivity during the pandemic’s first wave.
They found area deprivation accounted for 20 percent of the racial disparity, with Black majority neighborhood residents having 64 percent higher odds of COVID-19 positivity from March through June of 2020 relative to those in White majority neighborhoods.
In another paper, Matthew Crane and coauthors found, after adjusting for vaccine hesitancy, the COVID-19 vaccination rate is lowest in counties classified as high on the Social Vulnerability Index(SVI).
Further, after adjusting for social vulnerability, counties with high COVID-19 hesitancy report an average vaccination rate 17 percent lower than low-hesitancy counties.
“From an equity perspective, it is particularly concerning that the gap in COVID-19 vaccination rates between counties with high SVI and those with moderate and low SVI has increased over time,” the authors noted.
Today on Health Affairs Blog, Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil briefs readers about the exploration of a new open access journal at Health Affairs.
Morgane Mouslim and Morgan Henderson discuss how new data on hospital “discounted cash prices” might lead to
patient savings.
Katie Keith writes about updates to the Build Back Better Act, including pharmacy benefit manager oversight and insulin cost-sharing provisions.
Elevating Voices: Native American Heritage Month: In a 2019 study, Donald Warne and coauthors find improvements in insurance coverage among American Indians and Alaska Natives following implementation of the Affordable Care Act. However, they conclude, “disparities remain, and American Indians and Alaska Natives in midwestern regions remain in critical need of resources to improve health care access.”
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The
centerpiece of the November Health Affairs Journal Club meeting is “Estimating The Appropriate Size Of Global Pull Incentives For Antibacterial Medicines.” In this paper from the November 2021 issue of Health Affairs, author Kevin Outterson of the Boston University School of Law examines policy initiatives under way in the US and the UK that explore paying for exceptional antibacterials with “pull” incentives (paid after regulatory approval). The paper lays out a new model for calculating the global incentives required to create a functional antibacterial market.
Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2021 Time: 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. (EST) Place: Online details will be shared
with registrants 24 hours in advance of the event.
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewedjournalat the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.
Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.
