In a March 2018 Journal of Palliative Medicine article addressing improvements for dementia and senior caregiving, Everette James, interim dean and director of the Health Policy Institute, and other researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the RAND Corp. stated that “fundamental changes are needed in the way we identify, assess, and support caregivers. Educational and workforce development reforms are needed to enhance the competencies ...
MANAGED HEALTHCARE EXECUTIVE – With prices estimated to be 15-16% lower than originator products, biosimilars hold promise for reducing spending, but it is unclear how list prices, discounts, and net prices for the originator products change with such competition. HPM’s Walid Gellad is co-author on this JAMA Network Open publication. Results show that some prices increased annually by up to 6.1% until the introduction of a biosimilar after whic...
Congratulations to Mary Beth Zeni (HSADM ’93) on the publishing of her textbook, Principles of Epidemiology for Advanced Nursing Practice: A Population Health Perspective. Zeni is an associate professor of nursing at Ursuline College in Cleveland, OH. Additionally, Zeni uses her decades of experience in analyzing population health data as a member of the Cuyahoga County Board of Health Opioid Taskforce and the Ohio Injury Prevention Partnership’...
On a wet Wednesday night, December 4, Pitt Public Health student advocates Sarah Sanders (BCHS ’22), Sarah Bigelow (BCHS ’20), Paris Ekeke (EPI ’20), and Amy Raslevich (HPM ’22) joined peers from the schools of law and nursing for a Health Justice Night at Pitt's Community Empowerment Center in Homewood. The evening was powered by PechaKucha, aimed to spark community level engagement and inter-professional collaboration by offering a unique look...
Russell E. Morgan Jr (HSADM ’70) received the Carl E. Taylor Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his outstanding lifetime achievements in international health from the International Health Section of the American Public Health Association. Morgan was presented with the award during the 2019 APHA annual meeting in Philadelphia in November.
UPMC - People in rural areas of the U.S. who receive subsidies to buy health insurance pay less in premiums than their counterparts in urban areas, a flip that occurred in 2018 and has been widening since. “There’s this narrative that, until recently, was correct: Rural populations did not enjoy the same improved health plan affordability under the ACA as people living in cities, now we’re finding that, at least for subsidized enrollees, that’s ...
PASADENA STAR NEWS - HPM's Coleman Drake tells us it's an exciting year for the Affordable Care Act marketplace. More generous subsidies are available, overall premiums are only increasing slightly, and some insurers are expanding into new markets. But more research is needed for us to understand why some enrollees are not benefiting from the competitive market. Known to economists as inertia, this phenomenon occurs when health plan enrollees st...
VALDOSTA DAILY TIMES - "As an exemplary leader in the field of managed care, Dr. Hernandez sincerely represents the values that the Seema S. Sonnad Emerging Leader in Managed Care Research award was founded on," said Mike Hennessy Jr., president and CEO of MJH Life Sciences, parent company of the presenting body, the American Journal of Managed Care. The award was named in honor of Sonnad, who served as a mentor to many young researchers and was...
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER - While several previous studies have focused on the relationship between pharmaceutical promotions and doctors' prescribing habits, this new study from lead author Mara Hollander (HPM '20) focuses on how those payments affect physicians across specialties. "There's definitely some behavioral science and social science literature that indicates that providers may perceive themselves immune to bias from gift giving - we ...
Congratulations to Marian Jarlenski for being named the recipient of the 2019 John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators. Jarlenski was presented with this award at the AUPHA Annual Meeting in New Orleans in June. This award is used to recognize young faculty who have received their PhD within the past six years for their contributions to the research literature in the field of health services.
PROPUBLICA - HPM's Walid Gellad said it is quite striking how much money doctors were earning from other activities aside from patient care. More than 2,500 physicians received at least half a million dollars from drug makers and medical device companies in the past five years alone. And that doesn’t include money for research or royalties from inventions. More than 700 of those doctors received at least $1 million.
Cassandra Leighton (HPM '19) is a health services solutions analyst at AmeriHealth Caritas. Headquartered in Philadelphia, AmeriHealth Caritas is a managed care organization, serving over 5.1 million Medicaid, Medicare, and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) members across 11 states. In her role on the corporate analytics team, Leighton supports internal evaluation, participates in the new market entry process, and identifies new strateg...
Erika Garrison (MHA/MBA '20), Ilham Abdi (MHA '20), and Terrance Litam (MHA '20) took top honors in NAHSE's case competition held in Washington, DC. Competing among 29 teams representing the nation's top programs, the Pitt students developed a plan to address the health care needs of San Francisco's homeless population. "The team did an amazing job of preparing a creative and comprehensive solution, delivering their presentation in a very profes...
UPMC - "We found many self-reported symptoms of nicotine dependence," said co-author A. Everette James, director of the Pitt Health Policy Institute and interim dean of Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health. "Because of the lack of public knowledge about the dependence risks, it makes sense that many people seemed surprised about experiencing symptoms of withdrawal when they could not use their device."
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HPM’s Julie Donohue weighs in on how marketing pharmaceuticals directly to consumers isn’t new. In the paper “A History of Drug Advertising”, Donohue outlines the case for and against these advertisements. Proponents tout patient and consumer rights to make informed decisions, while bioethicists and historians believe pharmaceutical companies are “disingenuously using the language of individual rights to support commercial activities.”