Using Health Data

The aftershocks of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion continue to reverberate through the U.S. health care system. This brief and accompanying research agenda highlight priority research topics, methods, and recommendations for health services research to examine these wide-ranging implications on reproductive health care, health equity, and beyond.

HSR can play an important role in uncovering the impacts of the Dobbs decision on the health care system and health equity, and will be most effective in partnership with community voices and reproductive health researchers. A new brief shares an initial research agenda and an upcoming webinar provides an opportunity for further reflection and discussion.

The Medicaid Data Learning Network (MDLN) released a report on its open source efforts for researchers using T-MSIS Analytic Files (TAF) data.

In this special edition newsletter, the Evidence-Informed State Health Policy Institute (ESHPI) proudly highlights projects, partnerships, and publications from 2023 and previews the Institute’s upcoming projects for 2024.

Working in close partnership with patients, caregivers, researchers, and practitioners, Innovation and Value Initiative and AcademyHealth developed a new framework to recognize the broad health care economic impacts on patients and caregivers and aid researchers in addressing health disparities and creating value for patients and systems.

The winner and honorable mention of AcademyHealth’s 2023 Health Equity DataJam leveraged publicly available datasets to answer pressing questions related to health and health care disparities.

The lack of high quality, accessible national claims data has long been a roadblock to robust Medicaid research and subsequent evidence-based policymaking in the United States. While the release of TAF marked a significant improvement, research faculty with AcademyHealth’s Medicaid Data Learning Network (MDLN) outline important steps that state and federal policy makers can take to improve data quality, accessibility, and usability.