Suchergebnisse

The first open enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act has come and gone. One might be tempted to ask, "How has the law done so far?" — if only that question hadn't already been asked ad nauseum since the first week of open enrollment in October 2013. As a researcher whose primary interests are insurance coverage and access to care (and as an advisor in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), I have frequently been asked this question – by students, by friends and family, and by reporters. Consider this my response.

The Harvard Public Health Review (HPHR) recently sat down with Dr. Nancy Krieger, Professor of Social Epidemiology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Director of the Interdisciplinary Concentration on Women, Gender and Health, at HPSH. Drawing on her extensive body of research, she outlined how populations ultimately embody their social and ecologic experiences, which, under inequitable conditions—like those related to poverty to global climate change—can result in unfair and unjust distributions of disease and suffering. Far from deeming these distributions a given, Krieger argues that academics, public health professionals, policymakers, and informed constituencies have a right and an obligation to mobilize evidence in their efforts to address heath inequities head on and create a better world for all.