Dear readers, it’s been awhile since we published a “top posts of the year” roundup! In fact, we haven’t published one since 2018. So, as we wrap another eventful year of blogging at the intersection of public health and medicine, our holiday gift to you is here! Oh – and we’re still one of the top 100 medical blogs on FeedSpot, so thanks for reading and sharing our work!
Top Posts of 2019
In September 2019, Greg shared this awesome roundup to celebrate our 5-year blogging anniversary and focus on great blog posts (almost) no-one read. But we haven’t ever shared the posts published in 2019 that got the most readers. So, without further ado, here they are:
- The Health and Social Costs of Homelessness, By Red Thaddeus Miguel | September 26, 2019
- In this post, Red discussed the health care costs associated with homelessness. The post includes a great infographic and examines the costs directly attributed to homelessness, reviews some programs that have been effective and may save money, and ends with a recently published article whose investigation into the cost of healthcare among unhoused people raises the specter of discrimination in hospitals towards them.
- Street Medicine—a home for high quality medical care for people experiencing homelessness, By Corinne Feldman and Brett J. Feldman | March 28, 2019
- Continuing the focus on our unhoused neighbors, this compelling post from leaders of the Street Medicine Institute at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California (USC) provides a case study on street medicine–an approach that aims to improve the health of unsheltered patients and decrease the use of emergent and acute healthcare services.
- Can Flexible Training Help Combat Burnout?, By Ranit Mishori | September 26, 2019
- A perennial concern in healthcare is the epidemic of burnout among healthcare providers–even more so since COVID-19. This post addresses the problem of burnout among medical trainees and a novel approach to that intensive training that is underutilized. As Dr. Mishori writes, “No flexible training option could remove the structural problems that contribute to burnout in the first place, but it could offer a reprieve to some.”
- Instead of Building a Wall, Let’s Insure America’s Children, By Sonali Saluja | January 7, 2019
- Remember when the former US president wanted billions of dollars to construct a monument to failed policy on the Southern border? In this post, Dr. Saluja of USC explains that we “could save between 8.7 and 10.1 billion dollars a year simply by providing coverage to uninsured children who are eligible for existing programs.” Indeed, universal health insurance for kids would pay for itself!
- Medication Overload: The drug epidemic that no one is talking about, By Shannon Brownlee and Judith Garber | May 29, 2019
- This important post from researchers at the Lown Institute explains the harm caused by taking too many medications, particularly among older adults. The authors highlight the 2019 report, Medication Overload: America’s Other Drug Problem, which exposes this (ongoing) epidemic affecting millions of older adults and their families.
Top Posts of 2020
In 2020, the pandemic dominated our thoughts and energies as a field, and our blog reflected that focus. All told, we published 37 posts about COVID-19 in 2020. We rounded them up here, but we didn’t share which posts got the most attention. Drumroll please:
- Crafting more effective homemade masks and putting them to work, By Erin Dobbins | March 30, 2020
- Early in the pandemic, we were lucky to get this contribution explaining how to make better homemade masks. Masking became a political issue, but the evidence has always been clear that it’s a very important tool for reducing transmission. This post was our most-read post of 2020, and we are glad to have been able to help disseminate this important information in the days when it was impossible to get high-quality manufactured masks.
- Are DRG-based Reimbursements Appropriate for COVID-19?, By Katya Fonkych and Lisa Lines | August 7, 2020
- When COVID-19 arrived, so did the uncertainty about the best timing and criteria for ventilator use in ICUs. In one of the more controversial posts we’ve ever published, we wrote that “less-invasive treatments for critically ill COVID-19 patients could potentially improve patient outcomes. But these approaches expose hospitals to losing even more revenue because of higher reimbursements for ventilator care.” Then as now, there is “an urgent need to make COVID-19 treatment costs less sensitive to ventilator use and align incentives for hospitals to adopt best treatment practices.”
- Healthcare utilization in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, By Ben King | April 22, 2020
- In this post, Dr. King writes that “News and social media outlets have fallen short of useful during this public health emergency. Rumors and anecdotes are treated as evidence…” Thus, he wrote this evidence-based summary of what we knew about the virus as of April, 2020 in terms of incubation period, asymptomatic transmission, and accessing care at a time when many hospitals and clinics were overwhelmed. This post includes solid advice that has stood the test of time.
- Beyond Evidence Reporting: Evidence Translation in an Era of Uncertainty, By Jennifer D. Uhrig, Megan A. Lewis, Jon A. Poehlman and Brian G. Southwell | June 12, 2020
- Continuing on the theme of misinformation vs. evidence, this post features insights from communication science experts. They share tips on communicating the findings from rigorous science to the public in a meaningful way.
- Rebuilding the Foundation of Rural Community Health after COVID-19, By John Gale, Alana Knudson, Shena Popat | September 17, 2020
- When the pandemic is finally over, this team of researchers have suggestions for rebuilding rural healthcare capacity. Timely advice: “The four cornerstones – payment and delivery system reform, community engagement, local health planning, and regionalization – can provide the base for strong and vibrant health systems serving rural America.”
Top Posts of 2021
As the world tried to return to some degree of normalcy, authors at our blog returned to some more traditional topics. Yet many posts noted that issues like leadership, redlining and the social determinants of health were due great attention because of how they were amplified during the pandemic. Here are the top posts from 2021:
- White Box Warning: Language matters in overcoming bias in healthcare, By Yalda Jabbarpour & John M. Westfall | May 20, 2021
- Physicians and scientists may believe they are immune from implicit bias. But the authors of this post give powerful examples of how everyday language is imbued with racial bias. We have “white papers” that are authoritative and “black box” warnings that indicate danger. The authors argue that we must stop using terms that invoke racial stereotypes.
- Authentic Leadership in Healthcare And Public Health: What Is It And Why Should We Care?, By Lisa C. Flaherty and Tiffany Johnson | October 21, 2021
- During the pandemic, public health officials across the nation resigned in large numbers. The authors of this post reviewed leadership strategies that might help improve the work environment. Showing empathy, thinking long term, and improving communication are leadership strategies that could help stabilize the public health workforce.
- Artificially intelligent social risk adjustment, By Lisa Lines | December 10, 2021
- Lisa wrote this post laying bare the challenge of risk adjustment using social determinants of health. She argued that we often don’t have adequate measures or know what measures are most appropriate. In stepped artificial intelligence. Lisa and colleagues used AI to build a model from 147 publicly-available data sources. Then they correlated it with life expectancy. Interestingly, the model predicted nearly three-quarters of the variation.
- Social determinants of health: Language nuance matters, By Amy Chepaitis, Cleo Kordomenos, & Amarilys Bernacet | April 20, 2021
- We often use the term social determinants of health loosely. It serves as a catch-all for everything that influences health outside of medicine. However, the authors of this post reminds us that social determinants are different than social needs. And they argue that this distinction matters. For example, the factors that influence food insecurity (economics, location of grocery stores, etc.) are determinants. The insecurity this creates is a social need. Those two challenges are solved in very different ways.
- The Long Arm of Redlining: Health Inequities in the Digital Divide, By Janelle Armstrong-Brown, Jamie Humphrey, and Leah Sussman | November 19, 2021.
- Redlining is not an issue of the past. According to the authors of this post, it represents a “contemporary public health risk”. This includes a lack of broadband internet access needed to receive health information and use online medical care. Using historical redlining in Milwaukee, they found 20% differences in broadband between neighborhoods designated as “best” or “hazardous”.
Top Posts of 2022
In 2022, authors of our most popular posts were writing two- or three-part series. Birth equity was such a hot topic that one author of the birth equity series–Dr. Sharla Smith–was featured in an interview by NPR. Here are the top posts of 2022:
- Engaging Communities to Improve Systems of Care for Children with Complex Health Needs, By Sophie Hurewitz, David Ming, and Neal deJong | January 11, 2022
- This outstanding post was led by a Duke undergraduate student, in partnership with a pediatric research team. This two-part series described a virtual convening in North Carolina to solve problems with poorly coordinated pediatric health care. The authors offered four useful strategies their partners identified to improve coordination of care.
- Lessons From Conducting the Path-4CNC Virtual Convenings, By Sophie Hurewitz, David Ming, and Neal deJong | January 20, 2022
- The second part of the series on coordination of care explained the methods used to host their convening. They described how a virtual convening could be effective and rewarding. And they offered step-by-step instructions for researchers and other problem solvers to host their own virtual convening.
- How are CMMI health policy evaluations addressing non-parallel trends? By Brett Lissenden, Micah Segelman, and Molly Frommer | January 5, 2022
- In this methodology post, the authors explored an age-old question in evaluation studies: Is a comparison group really comparable? They note that many policy-relevant studies do not explicitly test whether comparison groups are indeed good counterfactuals. More often than not, researchers eyeball it.
- Whole Person Health: A Path to Health Equity (Part 1), By Elena Rosenbaum, Marva Richards, Andrea Gordon | April 11, 2022
- This is a compelling argument against our highly specialized medical care system. The authors wrote, “Doctors are rewarded financially and with status for becoming specialists, focusing on smaller and smaller parts of the body.” But they remind us that health care providers can make different choices. They can embrace the fact that individuals are not just body parts. Patients are whole people, affected by circumstance, culture and more.
- Words Matter in Creating Birth Equity – Birth Equity Series Part 2, By Oluoma Obi, Sharla Smith, Joi Wickliffe | February 10, 2022
- This was the second in a three-part series on birth equity written by a research team from the University of Kansas. They argued the language used to describe communities at-risk of poor birth outcomes compounds the difficulty of solving the problem. They wrote, “We have failed to create equitable terminology to improve patient decision making, remove stigma, and create equity.” The whole series is worth a read!
Thanks again for reading and sharing these fine posts with your networks, students, and colleagues! Congrats to all the contributors for their important work.
Lisa M. Lines
Senior health services researcher at RTI International
Lisa M. Lines, PhD, MPH is a senior health services researcher at RTI International, an independent, non-profit research institute. She is also an Assistant Professor in Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. Her research focuses on social drivers of health, quality of care, care experiences, and health outcomes, particularly among people with chronic or serious illnesses. She is co-editor of TheMedicalCareBlog.com and serves on the Medical Care Editorial Board. She served as chair of the APHA Medical Care Section's Health Equity Committee from 2014 to 2023.
Views expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of RTI or UMass Chan Medical School.
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Gregory Stevens
Professor at California State University, Los Angeles
Gregory D. Stevens, PhD, MHS is a health policy researcher, writer, teacher and advocate. He is a professor of public health at California State University, Los Angeles. He serves on the editorial board of the journal Medical Care, and is co-editor of The Medical Care Blog. He is also a co-author of the book Vulnerable Populations in the United States.