In November 2020, Health Affairs published a cluster of articles about early COVID-19 vaccine and treatment efforts. These papers—one coauthored by Rochelle Walensky, now the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—went on to be cited by hundreds of researchers and news outlets. Today, we revisit this foundational research.

In "Clinical Outcomes Of A COVID-19 Vaccine: Implementation Over Efficacy," A. David Paltiel and coauthors examined how different definitions and thresholds of vaccine efficacy, coupled with different levels of implementation effectiveness and background epidemic severity, translate into outcomes including cumulative infections, hospitalizations, and deaths.

"An Overview Of Vaccine Development, Approval, And Regulation, With Implications For COVID-19," by Aaron Kesselheim and coauthors, reviewed the standard Food and Drug Administration approach to vaccine evaluation, which underpinned its approach to assessment of COVID-19 vaccines.

In "Ensuring Equitable Access To COVID-19 Vaccines In The US: Current System Challenges And Opportunities," Angela Shen and coauthors made five recommendations to ensure that policies and practices at the federal, state, local, and tribal levels support equity, transparency, accountability, availability, and access to COVID-19 vaccines. Shen discussed this research on A Health Podyssey.

For Health Affairs’ most recent pandemic-related content, visit our COVID-19 Resource Center.

Today on Health Affairs Blog, Lynn Blewett and Minnesota House Rep. Jennifer Schultz explain Minnesota's approach to helping people who fall into the "family glitch" gap in Affordable Care Act coverage.

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The centerpiece of the December Health Affairs Journal Club meeting is "Despite National Declines In Kidney Failure Incidence, Disparities Widened Between Low- And High-Poverty Counties." In the paper, which will appear in the December 2021 issue of the journal, Kevin Nguyen and coauthors examine trends in the incidence of kidney failure by county-level poverty among US adults between 2000 and 2017. While national estimates suggest that overall rates are declining, the authors found marked disparity in incidence of kidney failure between low- and high-poverty counties.

Health Affairs Senior Editor Jessica Bylander will host Nguyen, an investigator in the Department of Health Services, Policy, and Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health, to talk in detail about the research, methods, and conclusions of the paper, including changes in policy and care delivery that will be required to close the gap for low-income areas and communities.

Date:     Thursday, December 9, 2021
Time:     1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. (ET)
Place:    Online details will be shared with registrants 24 hours in advance of the event.

About Health Affairs

Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewed journal at 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.

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