The Fund supports networks of state health policy decision makers to help identify, inspire, and inform policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund supports two state leadership programs for legislative and executive branch state government officials committed to improving population health.
The Fund identifies and shares policy ideas and analysis to advance state health leadership, strong primary care, and sustainable health care costs.
Keep up with news and updates from the Milbank Memorial Fund. And read the latest blogs from our thought leaders, including Fund President Christopher F. Koller.
The Fund publishes The Milbank Quarterly, as well as reports, issues briefs, and case studies on topics important to health policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund is is a foundation that works to improve population health and health equity.
Quarterly Department
Quarterly Article
October 2025 Katherine A. Kennedy, Cyrus Kosar, Madison S. Williams, Kali S. Thomas,
Context: Funded partially by the Older Americans Act, state Long-Term Care Ombudsman Programs (LTCOPs) provide a critical role in serving as… More
October 2025 STEPHAN R. LINDNER, JENNIFER HALL, BRYNNA MANIBUSAN, JORDAN BYERS, KYLE HART, ANDREA BARON, Dennis McCarty, K. John McConnell, Deborah J. Cohen,
Starting in 2015, states could apply for section 1115 substance use disorder (SUD) waivers to strengthen their continuum of care for treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD). Prior research found substantial variation in changes to medication use for OUD associated with waiver implementation. The objective of this study was to identify strategies that states undertook as part of their waivers that were associated with increases in methadone and buprenorphine treatment in eight waiver states (Indiana, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia). More
October 2025 Spruha Joshi, Victoria A. Jent, Sneha M. Sunder, Katherine Wheeler-Martin, Magdalena Cerdá,
See all articles in the special issue, Mental Health and Substance Use Challenges Facing the United States: What Can State Policymakers… More
September 2025 Louisiana M. Sanchez, Junhan Cho, Alyssa F. Harlow, Richard A. Miech, Steven Sussman, Hongying D. Dai, Abigail Adjei, Dae-Hee Han, Ming Li, Leah Meza, Adam M. Leventhal, Dayoung Bae,
The specific nontobacco e-cigarette flavors used by US youth who exclusively vape e-cigarettes compared with youth who engage in poly-tobacco or poly-substance use can help identify the populations most likely to be impacted by e-cigarette flavor policies. More
September 2025 Michael J. Yedidia, Joel C. Cantor,
Cross-sector collaborations among health care and housing services organizations promise more efficient use of resources and delivery of more coherent and effective services to people experiencing homelessness (PEH). More
September 2025 Beth McGinty, Pradhyumna Wagle, Christie Lee Luo, Nicholas J. Seewald, Elizabeth A. Stuart, Kayla N. Tormohlen,
State medical cannabis laws, currently in place in 39 states and Washington, DC, provide an avenue for therapeutic use of cannabis to manage chronic noncancer pain stemming from conditions such as arthritis and low back pain. These laws may also influence cannabis and opioid addiction and overdose, for example, if people substitute cannabis in place of opioids to manage pain. No studies, to our knowledge, have examined how state medical cannabis laws influence health care use related to addiction to or overdose from cannabis or opioids among people with chronic noncancer pain. More
September 2025 Isaac Weldon, Kathleen Liddell, Kevin Outterson,
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a pressing global health crisis rooted in complex collective action problems. Despite the urgency, policy responses have not kept pace with the escalating threat of drug resistance. By recognizing the similarities between AMR governance and other shared-resource challenges in environmental governance, this article examines potential strategies for AMR governance. More
August 2025 Dorothy Y. Hung, LILLIAN C. LEVY, Thomas G. Rundall, ELINA REPONEN, WILLIAM HUEN, Stephen M. Shortell,
Lean management is a sociotechnical approach to quality improvement that aims for consistency in work processes and outcomes. This can be leveraged to reduce inequities by ensuring delivery of high-quality care to meet the needs of patients with diverse backgrounds. Despite recent efforts in the field, there is limited study on how managers implement health equity and workforce diversity goals as strategies to improve patient care. Given the important role of leadership in fostering workplace culture, we examined leader activities and specifically their use of lean management practices to support equity initiatives in health care. More
August 2025 LISA V. RUBENSTEIN, SYDNE J. NEWBERRY, ISHITA GHAI, ANEESA MOTALA, IDAMAY CURTIS, PAUL G. SHEKELLE, TODD H. WAGNER, L. DIEM TRAN, STEPHEN D. FIHN, KARIN M. NELSON,
Current primary care productivity measures do not account for investment in interprofessional primary care teams in relation to primary care goals and thus are insufficient for assessing and improving primary care efficiency and productivity. We explored alternative productivity measurement methods. More
August 2025 Amanda I. Mauri, Zoe Lindenfeld, Charley Willison, THERESE L. TODD, Jonathan Purtle, DIANA SILVER,
Individuals with behavioral health disorders are more likely to experience substantial harm from a police encounter, prompting reforms to minimize encounters between police and people experiencing a behavioral health crisis. One strategy involves expanding partnerships between certified community behavioral health clinic (CCBHC) mobile crisis teams and emergency response systems, often through two models: 911 referral, wherein a CCBHC’s behavioral health practitioner–only team responds to 911 calls, and co-response, wherein a CCBHC clinician joins a police or emergency medical services (EMS) team. More
