Healthcare
The Fight for Healthcare Equity after COVID-19
Dr. Cecelia Calhoun ’21, a Yale physician with a focus on sickle cell disease, and Yale SOM’s Dr. Howard Forman discuss the gargantuan but critical challenge of addressing the impact of systemic racism on the health of Black Americans.
Can Legalizing Cannabis Curb Deaths from Opioids?
A new study co-authored by Yale SOM’s Balázs Kovács uses new data to uncover a striking association: the more legal cannabis dispensaries there are in a given county, the fewer opioid overdoses.
![A cannabis shop in Leicester, Massachusetts, in November 2018, when the sale of recreational marijuana became legal in the state. Photo: Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images.]()
The Vaccines Bring Hope—and New Questions
A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines are a reality—and now we face the logistical and medical complications of inoculating a vast population while infection rages and the virus mutates. We asked Yale SOM’s Dr. Howard Forman, a public authority on the pandemic, for an update.
![A woman getting a vaccination]()
How Systems Thinking Can Help Stop Neglected Tropical Diseases
Despite being easy and inexpensive to treat, a group of common bacterial and parasitic infections kill hundreds of thousands of people in tropical countries each year. In a new paper, Yale SOM’s Teresa Chahine and her co-authors map the complex system of stakeholders surrounding the diseases and identify key leverage points for making progress.
![Students receiving a deworming treatment at a school in Rwanda.]()
The History of the Forgotten Pandemic
In 1957, a novel strain of the flu spread around the world, the first global outbreak since the 1918 flu pandemic. More than one million people died, 116,000 of them in the United States. But schooling, shopping, and sporting events went on as normal, and the pandemic has largely faded from public memory.
![A nurse at Montefiore Hospital in New York City receives a flu vaccination in 1957. Photo: Everett Collection Historical/Alamy Stock Photo.]()
Did Congress Just Fix Surprise Medical Billing?
A new federal law prevents patients from being billed by out-of-network doctors after being treated in an in-network hospital. We asked Prof. Fiona Scott Morton, whose research helped bring the practice to light, what the new law will mean for patients and healthcare costs.
![An emergency room in Moreno Valley, California, in May 2020. Photo: Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.]()
Study Shows Which Restrictions Prevent COVID-19 Fatalities—and Which Appear to Make Things Worse
New research from Yale SOM’s Heather Tookes and Matthew Spiegel finds that mask mandates, closing restaurants, and stay-at-home orders are all effective at saving lives, but other commonly used measures can actually worsen the spread of the pandemic.
![A sign reading "everyone is required to wear a mask" at Playland’s Castaway Cove, an amusement park in Ocean City, New Jersey, in September 2020. Photo: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images.]()
Pharma Collaborates in the Fight against the Pandemic
Nandish Poluru ’13 discusses the pharmaceutical industry’s unprecedented cooperative efforts to treat and prevent COVID-19.
![Scientists gathered around a lab table working with test tubes in concert.]()
A Life-Changing Vaccine, If We Do It Right
Pfizer’s announcement that its experimental COVID-19 vaccine appears to be more than 90% effective has provided hope for relief from the increasingly calamitous onslaught of the virus. We asked Yale SOM’s Dr. Howard Forman about next steps.
![Gloved hands preparing to make an injection into a person's shoulder]()
Delivering Holistic Healthcare in an Underserved Community
Dr. Suzanne Lagarde ’14 describes how her federally qualified nonprofit health center is both adapting and expanding to meet new needs in an underserved community.
![An illustration of a clinic at the center of a neighborhood]()
Testing Sewage Can Provide an Early Warning of COVID-19 Outbreaks
Earlier this year, a team of Yale researchers showed that the concentration of COVID-19 RNA in sewage mirrors the spread of the disease through a population. In a new study, they find that testing sewage can serve as an early indicator of an outbreak relative to hospitalizations.
![A transmission electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles. Courtesy of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.]()
