The Role of Public Opinion Polls in Health Policy

The science of survey research is complicated, but there are a few simple terms you can learn and questions you can ask when you encounter polls in your schooling and daily life. These include: Population. Who is the population that the survey is claiming to represent? Polls can be conducted with many different populations, so…

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Congress and the Executive Branch and Health Policy

Under Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress is granted the exclusive power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, and to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and General Welfare of the United States.”   In 1974, lawmakers passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act in an effort to…

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The U.S. Government and Global Health

While the U.S. government’s involvement in global health currently faces an uncertain future – with a more limited scope, the dissolution of USAID, and cancelation of numerous U.S.-supported global health projects, as the Trump administration seeks to reorganize foreign aid more broadly –  the U.S. has historically supported global health through a wide array of…

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International Comparison of Health Systems

Wealthy countries, including the U.S., tend to spend more per person on health care and related expenses than lower-income countries. However, even among higher-income countries, the U.S. spends far more per person on health. Spending Growth Over the past five decades, the health spending gap between the U.S. and peer nations has widened. In 1970,…

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