Public Health Policy

The COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed public discourse and news coverage over the course of the past three years. However, while COVID remains an incredibly important and timely topic of discussion, monkeypox should also be at the center of the country’s focus. The monkeypox virus has taken lives & threatened marginalized communities, warranting the attention of the federal government and state legislature nationwide. In this brief, we will explain exactly what the monkeypox virus is and policy measures that governments across the country can take to counteract its effects and increase public awareness about the virus.

Few issues in political and social discourse are as polarizing as that of abortion. Abortion policy has been shaped by influential Supreme Court decisions like Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and most recently, Dobbs v. Jackson, each of which has presented unique viewpoints on the constitutionality of abortion in the United States. Abortion policy has a major influence on public health, especially maternal and neonatal health. Often intertwined with public health arguments are moral and philosophical arguments about abortion, which further contribute to its controversial nature. In this brief, we will examine the evolution of abortion policy in the United States and the debates surrounding it in the present day with a special emphasis on public health.

The development of birth control has brought about great autonomy in pregnancy planning and sexual freedom. Yet, the development of birth control in the United States is rich with trials and tribulations that continue to this day. Today, there are many forms of birth control available for men and women, and its accessibility is increasing. However, stark inequalities in birth control access still exist among various demographic groups, notably along racial and socioeconomic lines. A variety of government policies, non-governmental organizations, and advocacy groups have influenced the development and accessibility of birth control in the United States, and research continues to flourish in this area.

In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies assured the public that individuals would not become addicted to opioid pain relievers, and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at an increased rate. It soon became clear that these companies were misleading the public—misuse of these drugs had become a serious issue and was declared a public health emergency in 2017. In this brief, we will discuss the opioid epidemic in depth, including its beginning, its effects on public health, and its relation to COVID-19.

Women grapple with many health-related issues, particularly those related to reproductive health. In this brief, we evaluate the state of women’s health in the U.S., with a particular emphasis on teen pregnancy rates, birth control access, and abortion access. We consider various social determinants of health, such as race, income, and geographic location, and analyze their impact on women’s health. We also discuss legislation aimed to improve women’s health in the U.S. and the effects that they have had.

The United States has a mixed healthcare system with mostly private health insurers and a public healthcare option. The U.S. is one of several countries across the world with such a system, while some other countries provide a single-payer, fully public healthcare system, and others rely on solely private healthcare. In this brief, we examine the logistics of each healthcare system, as well as their benefits and drawbacks.

Both structural and interpersonal racism play a major role in perpetuating the racial disparities in the American healthcare system. Racial minorities are disproportionately negatively affected by difficulties in healthcare access, treatment, and costs: all of which have consequences in the overall well-being of minority communities. In this brief, we examine the extent to which racial disparities affect American society and the efficacy of policies implemented to reduce them, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.

The recent rise of the genetic engineering field has brought about vigorous debate among Americans. The benefits of this field are apparent, especially for agriculture—both crops and animals—but the public worries about the safety of genetically modified food and its long term health effects. Similarly, the public is divided on the topic of human genome editing, where genetic engineering is used to alter the genes in order to prevent genetic disease or “enhance” desirable features. This has obviously been a point of contention within the American public and has been addressed by many different stakeholders.

Since the turn of the century, climate change has become an increasingly important issue in American politics. Two-thirds of U.S. adults believe that the government is doing too little to mitigate the “climate crisis”—but there remains a significant partisan divide on the issue. In this brief, we will discuss the causes and effects of climate change, as well as the policies and initiatives aimed at slowing it down.

The Omicron surge that originated in Botswana and South Africa has swept across the world. This SARS-CoV-2 strain, though seemingly milder, is much more transmissible than previous variants, contributing to extreme case counts, especially in the United States. As a result, the Omicron surge has invigorated political debates surrounding vaccine mandates, school closures, and other public health measures, hence exacerbating regional divisions in political ideology and the COVID-19 burden.

In this brief, we discuss the state of mental health in the United States, the breakdown in mental illness across various demographic groups, and the recent mental health trends in the United States. In particular, we examine factors like COVID-19 and gender identity—two very strong factors that influence mental health.

In this brief, we discuss vaccine rollout in the states as well as the general public response to the COVID vaccine. Techniques for increasing vaccination rates differ widely across the states - and this difference can be better understood by considering differing political landscapes in our analysis. Public response to the vaccine are sharply divided along vaccination status, political ideology, and occupational status.

In this brief, we discuss the FDA’s approval of Aducanumab for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. This decision has sparked controversy within the clinical community due to the accelerated nature of the approval as well as the surrogate endpoint used.

The world has not only grabbed with the COVID-19 pandemic, but also a misinformation epidemic that has done considerable damage to the public health infrastructure. In this brief, we examine the causes, effects, and implications of the COVID-19 misinformation epidemic.