March 2025 (Volume 103)
From the Editor
In the March 2025 Issue of the Quarterly: Population Health Imperiled
This issue of the Quarterly opens with a thoughtful Perspective on equity in evidence-informed decision making, and is followed by original scholarship on an array of policy topics, including: insurance to improve patient access to cell and gene therapy; essential medicines in the World Health Organization’s Model Lists; access to mental health treatment; principles for embedding health equity language in policy research and practice; comprehensiveness in primary care; and whole person health assessments. More
Perspective
Centering Equity in Evidence-Informed Decision Making: Theoretical and Practical Considerations
Over the past 50 years, population health researchers have made significant progress in clarifying the empirical and theoretical relationships between socioeconomic conditions and health disparities particularly for social constructs such as race and ethnicity. More
Original Scholarship
Innovative Insurance to Improve US Patient Access to Cell and Gene Therapy
Cell and gene therapies (CGTs) offer treatment to rare and oftentimes deadly diseases. Because of their high price and uncertain clinical outcomes, US insurers commonly restrain patient access to CGTs, and these barriers may create or perpetuate existing disparities. A reconsideration of existing insurance policies to improve access and reduce disparities is currently underway. More
The Political Economy of the World Health Organization Model Lists of Essential Medicines
The World Health Organization (WHO) Model Lists of Essential Medicines (EML) aims to help countries select medicines based on the priority needs of their populations. However, rapid evolution within the pharmaceutical sector toward complex, high-priced medicines has challenged WHO decision making, leading to inconsistent decisions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how political factors impact the WHO EML. More
Mental Health Treatment Access: Experience, Hypotheticals, and Public Opinion
Mental health problems represent a major public health issue for the United States, and access to mental health treatment is both inadequate and unevenly distributed. There is a strong justification for government action on mental health treatment, but it is unclear whether there is a political constituency for such action. Existing work suggests that stigma and othering of people with mental illnesses contributes to reduced support for intervention. I expand on the existing literature by focusing on mental health as an issue that may apply to Americans’ own lives rather than only to a stigmatized outgroup. More
Naming and Framing: Six Principles for Embedding Health Equity Language in Policy Research, Writing, and Practice
Language specificity in research, advocacy, and writing is an important tool to ensure more equitable health policies. All health policy practitioners working at the intersection of health care, health policy, and health equity have a role in upholding ethical standards that promote the use of humanizing, inclusive, and antisupremacist language. More
Comprehensiveness in Primary Care: A Scoping Review
This scoping review explored how comprehensiveness in primary care is conceptualized and defined in order to map its attributes in support of being able to more clearly and precisely define this key concept in research, practice, and policy. More
How Are You Doing… Really? A Review of Whole Person Health Assessments
To provide a foundation for assessing whole person health and support further instrument development, this review summarizes past work on assessing person-reported whole health, articulates conceptual domains encompassing whole health, and identifies lessons from existing instruments, including considerations for administration. More
