Journal of Public Health Policy

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

In April 2020, the World Health Organization launched a COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility, a groundbreaking public health policy, to work "for global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines". Although innovative, it fails to bridge the 'immunization gap' between high-income and low-income countries. The main reasons for this include: (1) failure to provide adequate incentives for self-financing countries to participate; (2) failure to design the vaccine allocation mechanism to reflect to national political considerations along with the perspective of medical ethics; (3) lack independent financing and power to enforce the policies globally...

Diabetes is the most expensive chronic disease in the United States, and hospital inpatient care accounts for 30% of the total medical expenditures. Medical costs for people with limited resources are covered by Medicaid, a joint federal and state program, and its expansion that extent the coverage to those with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level. We investigated the impact of Medicaid expansion on diabetes hospitalizations by states and payer, among adults aged 19 to 64 years old, 5 years after the expansion...

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The purpose of workplace public health programmes and regulations is to promote safety and health for the entire working population nationwide. Some countries limit the scope of such programmes to medium or big-sized companies, leaving out small and micro-enterprises, thus discriminating against many workers exposed to risks. This Viewpoint aims to identify inequalities in occupational health generated by the new Regulation for Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) in Ecuador. We showed how the regulation excludes all micro-enterprises and displayed the essential role of micro-enterprises in the business fabric and the Ecuadorian labour market...

Using scoping review methods, we systematically searched multiple online databases for publications in the first year of the pandemic that proposed pragmatic population or health system-level solutions to health inequities. We found 77 publications with proposed solutions to pandemic-related health inequities. Most were commentaries, letters, or editorials from the USA, offering untested solutions, and no robust evidence on effectiveness. Some of the proposed solutions could unintentionally exacerbate health inequities...

High salt intake is a well-known risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Some recent prospective studies have challenged the salt-CVD link. We conducted a narrative review based on a systematic search and provided a national policy update. We reviewed 14 observational prospective studies in healthy adults, reporting the association between sodium intake and excretion or reduction and CVD incidence. Validated by cohort studies, recommended sodium consumption levels (< 1.5-2 gram per day) are still relevant for the prevention of CVD in adults...

The rates of cigarette smoking in the United States have declined over the past few decades in parallel with increases in cigarette taxes and introduction of more stringent clean indoor air laws. Few longitudinal studies have examined association of taxes and clean indoor air policies with change in smoking nationally. This study examined the association of state and local cigarette taxes and clean indoor laws with change in smoking status of 18,499 adult participants of the longitudinal 2010-2011 Tobacco Use Supplement of the Current Population Survey over a period of 1 year...

Only a few states have adopted a paid family leave (PFL) policy in the United States of America. Local media described the 2019 Oregon PFL legislation as "the most progressive" policy in the country, with coalitions as crucial policy advocates. This case study applies the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to examine policy learning and negotiated agreements as causal mechanisms to explain the adoption of the PFL. We identified three modes of policy learning: previous policy cycles, learning from other coalitions, and learning from community organizations...

Driving under the influence (DUI) remains an important threat to public health in the United States, and a substantial literature has evaluated the effectiveness of state-mandated penalties. Researchers have overlooked accelerated use of obscured fees and surcharges levied by local and state court systems added to penalties in the past 15 years. We present data regarding DUI penalties for offenders with a blood alcohol content (BAC of 0.08) and the fees and surcharges attached to them in Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa, and variation in these within Wisconsin at four BAC levels...

The Targeted Translation Research Accelerator program was created to address cardiovascular disease and diabetes in Australia. To maximise the impact of the considerable investment in this program, a structured prioritisation project was undertaken to determine the highest priority health and medical unmet needs in cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The project was led by Monash University's Behaviour Works Australia in collaboration with Australian National University, Research Australia, and MTPConnect...

Understanding the socioeconomic and health impacts of the pandemic and their consequences on immigrants necessitates consideration of how they have perceived the global threat. By applying agenda-setting theory to Turkish-speaking immigrants in Germany as a case study, I investigated what issues created a sense of urgency for them during the initial lockdown and how they approached the government's COVID-19-related agenda. I used purposeful sampling and video comments on COVID-19-related news created by three journalists on YouTube channels and applied qualitative content analysis to interpret the comments...

There is a pressing need to develop and evaluate culturally tailored, community-based interventions that address hypertension management among low-income African American women. We employed a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of the Prime Time Sister Circles® Program in reducing blood pressure and body mass index among low-income African American women ages with hypertension. Study participants (N = 339) were African American women aged 40-75 years who were diagnosed with hypertension and received their primary care at government funded health centers in Washington, D...

Measuring health inequalities is essential to inform policy making and for monitoring implementation to reduce avoidable and unfair differences in health status. We conducted a geospatial analysis of child mortality in Iran using death records from the Ministry of Health and Medical Education from 2016 to 2018 stratified by sex, age, province, and district, and household expenditure and income survey data from the Statistical Center of Iran collected in 2017. We applied multilevel mixed-effect models and detected significant inequality in child mortality and the impact of socioeconomic factors, especially household income...

This Viewpoint presents a case study that explored the effects of using a performance-based Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in public health donor programs to enhance health metrics, program efficiency, and accountability. The MoU between Kebbi State Government in Nigeria and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) focused on strengthening primary healthcare. It covered Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) indicators, overseen by an Operations Committee (OC) and a high-level Steering Committee (SC)...

The First-Generation and/or Low-Income (FGLI) identity is not readily visible, encapsulating those who are the first in their families to complete a 4-year college degree and/or those living near or below the poverty line. In the backdrop of unprecedented levels of socioeconomic inequality in a country where household income predicts educational attainment, we explore the current state of U.S. society regarding socioeconomic status and health care. We describe challenges in diversifying the health care workforce and present a multi-pronged policy approach for visibilizing, recruiting, supporting, and retaining FGLI trainees in medicine, with the promise of improving the quality of health care delivery altogether...

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We highlight critical public healthcare inadequacies for older adult populations resulting in fatalities after Hurricane Ian. We summarize whether a fatality was a result of the storm directly, indirectly, or not at all. Massive destruction from Ian eliminated critical life-sustaining health care for the week following the hurricane. This disproportionately affected the older adult population, with most elder deaths attributed to a lack of some form of health care. To prevent further unnecessary deaths following a disaster event, we recommend that public health policy practitioners, medical practitioners, and state officials consider how to provide managed opt-in emergency care services, mobile elderly care until restoration of power and services, and revisions to community-based critical care provider building codes to include generators and fuel...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Policymakers aim sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes at decreasing SSB consumption; however, little is known about their impact on beverage marketing in the retail environment. We assessed changes in interior marketing displays within large food stores before and after the implementation of Seattle's SSB tax. We used Poisson difference-in-difference (DID) models to estimate whether presence and variety of interior beverage marketing displays in Seattle changed from before to after the tax compared to displays in non-taxed comparison area stores, overall, and by beverage type...