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Category: commentary

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Analytics

Mapping High Social Vulnerability, Rural Poverty, and Healthcare Organizations

If you want to understand American healthcare, don’t start with hospital rankings. Start with geography. We analyzed 4,523 non-profit healthcare organizations operating across 1,508 U.S. counties. For each county, we examined three structural markers: the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), rural classification, and the presence of high-poverty census tracts. The goal was simple. Are healthcare […]

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Commentary

The 2026 State of the Union: What It Means for Health and Public Health

In his February 24, 2026, State of the Union address, President Donald Trump devoted significant attention to issues that directly affect health, public health systems, and the social conditions that shape well-being in the United States. While the speech was framed around economic revival, border security, and national strength, it included several major claims and […]

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Commentary

How Health Systems Can Maintain a Commitment to Health Equity in 2026

In 2025, political and social shifts created real uncertainty for health systems committed to advancing health equity. Federal actions targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, funding rollbacks, and language changes have left many hospitals asking: Can we still do this work—and how? A new Innovation Report from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), “Maintaining […]

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AI

The Future of American Healthcare: Collapse, AI, or Reinvention?

What thousands of patients, clinicians, and insiders believe comes next If you want to glimpse the future of American healthcare, don’t just read policy papers or hospital reports. Listen to patients. In a viral online discussion, hundreds of participants, including nurses, physicians, freelancers, and retirees, shared their predictions for the next 5, 10, and 25 […]

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Commentary

“The Great Healthcare Plan” Sounds Simple. Healthcare Isn’t.

If you’ve ever tried to compare health insurance plans, argue with a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), or figure out why your prescription costs more than your rent, you know the U.S. healthcare system has a special talent for making basic things feel impossible. That’s why a short, punchy policy document like The Great Healthcare Plan […]

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Commentary

When Surveillance Becomes a Social Determinant of Health

Juan Sebastián Pinto’s explosive essay is framed as a story about war, Silicon Valley, and authoritarianism—but for public health, it should read like an emergency briefing. What he describes is the rapid conversion of surveillance, data extraction, and narrative control into tools of population management. That has direct, measurable consequences for health, equity, and democracy. […]

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Commentary

How “Gold-Standard Science” Has Been Weaponized in Public Health

As we close out the year, I want to revisit one of my least favorite trends. The misappropriation of scientific language. In public health, few phrases carry more authority than “gold-standard science.” It signals rigor, objectivity, and trustworthiness. But increasingly, this language is being repurposed—not to improve decisions, but to shut them down. What was […]

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Commentary

Data-Driven vs. Data-Informed Decision-Making in Public Health

Across nearly every sector, data has become central to decision-making. In public health, the rise of dashboards, performance metrics, and predictive analytics has fueled a strong push toward data-driven decision-making. On the surface, this approach feels logical. Using data to guide choices promises efficiency, accountability, and objectivity. But public health rarely operates in controlled or […]

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Commentary

Mission or Margin: How Nonprofits Are Becoming Private Equity in Disguise

The Betrayal of the Nonprofit Promise Fifty years ago, the American nonprofit sector was anchored by trust. Community hospitals, faith-based charities, and behavioral health providers existed to fill the gaps left by markets and government alike. But in 2025, a darker transformation is unfolding. Large nonprofit health systems are increasingly behaving like private equity (PE) […]

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Commentary

Resilience or Ruin? The Future of U.S. Public Health — Coming Soon

America’s public health system is standing at a crossroads. Over the past several years, the foundations that protect our communities—disease prevention, outbreak response, and population surveillance—have been weakened by political interference, funding cuts, and leadership instability. Resilience or Ruin? The Future of U.S. Public Health, a forthcoming report from This Week in Public Health, reveals […]

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Commentary

Measuring Equity in an Age of Disinvestment: A Critical Look at IHI’s New Framework

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) 2025 white paper, Advancing Health Equity: An Approach to Systematically Identify and Evaluate Health Disparities, offers a structured, evidence-based pathway for health systems to measure inequities in care. It arrives at a crucial moment. The very concept of “equity” has become politically fraught, and when public health infrastructure itself […]

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