Reports

Background: Social determinants of health (SDH) are increasingly seen as important to understanding patient health and identifying appropriate interventions to improve health outcomes, in what is a complex interplay between health system, community, and individual level factors.

Medicare Advantage (MA) plans that serve relatively higher proportions of dually enrolled beneficiaries have lower ratings in the MA Star Rating program than plans that serve fewer dually enrolled beneficiaries. However, some MA plans that serve a high proportion of dually enrolled beneficiaries are high performers.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) uses the Star Rating program to measure the quality of Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, publicly report plan performance, and determine quality bonus payments and rebates for MA plans.

This project explores how the need for workers in healthcare professions can be partially met by hiring individuals with criminal records who do not pose a risk to public safety. The report is organized around the following five things to consider for employing certain individuals with criminal records in the healthcare sector:

This analysis builds on the ASPE publication on child support cooperation requirements to determine the overlap in the populations of custodial and noncustodial parents with and without formal child support orders, that are eligible for both Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and subsidized child care (CCDF).  The data used in the infographic are based on TRIM3 analysis of th

This project brought together policymakers, practitioners and evaluators in October 2017 to identify key policy research questions in the child support program.  The discussions, coupled with a series of informant interviews from 2016, led to the development of the research agenda.  It is a framework for the broader child support community to collectively answer pressing policy questi

This report highlights key research questions and identifies opportunities to use existing data sources and implement data-linking strategies that can support the HHS five point strategy to combat the opioid crisis.

Using manufacturer-reported prescription pharmaceutical prices, we observe that the number of price increases has been reduced considerably since the release of the President’s Drug Pricing Blueprint, compared to the same time period in the year prior.

Nga T. Thach, BS, and Joshua M. Wiener, PhD RTI International May 2018 Printer Friendly Version in PDF Format (34 PDF pages)

This report examines the role of long-term services and supports (LTSS) in Medicaid. It also examines how sociodemographic changes are likely to affect the demand for LTSS in the future, and as a result, Medicaid use and expenditures.

Jesse Hinde, PhD, Jennifer Hayes, BA, Tami Mark, PhD, Shampa Bernstein, JD, BA, and Sarita L.

This report summarizes financing and workforce policies that can be used by states to expand treatment access and capacity for opioid use disorder (OUD), focusing especially on medication-assisted treatment (MAT).

Ellen Bouchery Mathematica Policy Research December 5, 2017 Printer Friendly Version in PDF Format (101 PDF pages)

Federal policies implemented in the last decade, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, have promoted insurance coverage for substance use disorders (SUDs). By providing funding for treatment services, these federal policies were intended to increase the proportion of individuals with SUDs who seek and receive evidence-based treatments.

The OS PCORTF Annual Report provides project descriptions for each of the OS-PCORTF portfolio’s 21 projects that were active in calendar year 2017.

ASPE analyzed Part D prescription drug event data from 2016 to estimate spending on brand drugs with generic therapeutic equivalents.

This Brief provides an examination of the amount of time that low-income families from 32 states received child care subsidies.  These families began receiving government-funded child care subsidies during Fiscal Year 2012, prior to the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act.  In general, families utilized child care subsidy programs for short time p

States have flexibility to require a person that receives SNAP or subsidized child care to cooperate with the child support program.  This infographic introduces the child support cooperation policy variation across the states and then presents characteristic information about the custodial and noncustodial parents that may be subject to cooperation requirements in SNAP and subsidized chil

This brief examines instability across key areas of family life for children and their households, and the characteristics of those most likely to experience instability.

This study examines relationships between indicators of economic opportunity and the prevalence of prescription opioids and substance use in the United States. We have three primary findings:

This brief describes the research methods used to produce the findings in Substance Use, the Opioid Epidemic, and Child Welfare Caseloads: A Mixed Methods Study. It is a part of a series of briefs that discuss different aspects and issues surrounding the relationship between substance use disorders and the child welfare system.

Ellen Bouchery, Mathematica Policy Research Judith Dey, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Printer Friendly Version in PDF Format (5 PDF pages)

Many barriers to accessing evidence-based treatment for substance use disorder (SUD), particularly medication assisted treatment, are related to the workforce. Barriers include workforce shortages for certain providers, insufficient training, education and experience, lack of institutional and clinician peer support, provider stigma and inadequate or burdensome reimbursement.

An increasing number of child welfare agencies are considering using predictive analytics in their work. Typically they do so by contracting with a vendor to develop and maintain a predictive analytics model that is used by the agency to predict risk of a specified outcome.

This report summarizes strategies Indian Health Service (IHS) clinics have used to implement the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model of care, challenges they faced during implementation, and lessons learned that might benefit IHS clinics that have not yet received PCMH recognition.  Common strategies to address challenges include use of telemedicine and partnerships with academic me

This report summarizes findings from a small qualitative study of six health centers that are pursuing a diverse range of approaches to facilitating specialty care for patients.

National Research Summit on Care, Services, and Supports for Persons with Dementia and Their Caregivers

Main Summit Recommendations April 27, 2018Updated May 16, 2018

This is the PDF version of the 12 Recommendation Themes from National Research Summit on Care, Services, and Supports for Persons with Dementia and Their Caregivers: Report to the National Advisory Council on Alzheimer's Research, Care, and Service.

This is the PDF version of the final Summit report, which includes the recommendations, prepared for the National Research Summit on Care, Services, and Supports for Persons with Dementia and Their Caregivers (also called the Research Summit on Dementia Care). Originally dated April 27, 2018; small changes were made on May 16, 2018.

This report provides welfare dependence indicators through 2015 for most indicators and through 2016 for some indicators, reflecting changes that have taken place since enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996.

Treatment foster care (TFC; sometimes known as therapeutic foster care) is a family-based placement option for children with serious emotional, behavioral, or medical needs who can be served in the community with intensive support. This report describes how TFC is implemented and supported by states.

Printer Friendly Version in PDF Format (98 PDF pages)

Many people with behavioral health disorders receive suboptimal care and suffer poor health outcomes, including premature death. States, health plans, providers, and other stakeholders need a strong set of measures targeting this population to improve the quality of their care.

The 2014 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) final rule, “Food Labeling: Nutrition Labeling of Standard Menu Items in Restaurants and Similar Retail Food Establishments,” requires information on the calorie content of food items to be clearly displayed on menus.

This project developed methods and measures that can be used to quantify the public benefits that result from Interoperable Health Information Exchange (IEHI). In the first phase of this project, a literature review was conducted and discussions were held with subject matter experts to identify areas where evidence suggests that the greatest benefits resulting from IEHI might be found.

This study expands upon the analysis of the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) begun in “Provider Retention in High Need Areas and continued in “The National Health Service Corps:  An Extended Analysis” by using the same techniques used in these earlier studies to examine retention patterns in Indian Health providers..  The study finds about 81% of the IHS program participants serve

This study examined the relationship between parental substance misuse and child welfare caseloads, which began rising in 2012 after more than a decade of decline.

This research brief describes how select indicators associated with substance use prevalence relate to the changing trend in child welfare caseloads. It is part of a series describing findings of a mixed methods study undertaken to better understand how parental substance use relates to child welfare caseloads, which began rising in 2012 following years of sustained declines.

Rose Feinberg, Tasseli McKay, Joshua Green and Anupa Bir RTI International Printer Friendly Version in PDF Format (66 PDF pages)

Linkage to health coverage upon release from prison or jail is a critical aspect of the reentry process that may promote greater personal stability and productivity, as well as better care coordination in the community health care system and subsequent reductions in state expenditures.

The development of new drugs and biologics is critical to ensuring that the U.S. population continues to enjoy improvements in quality and length of life.

The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 provided states with the option to operate guardianship assistance programs (GAP) as part of their child welfare permanency continuum under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act.  The first of these programs began operating in 2010, though some states had operated guardianship programs under title IV-E demonstration

This scan of public and private technical assistance (TA) initiatives synthesizes lessons, challenges, and best practices for providing federal TA to human services programs working to address poverty and child well-being. The scan, encompassing 18 TA initiatives, is intended to inform decisions about how best to target TA efforts for different situations, audiences, and objectives.

This is the PDF version of a Post-Summit Activity Paper prepared for the National Research Summit on Care, Services, and Supports for Persons with Dementia and Their Caregivers (also called the Research Summit on Dementia Care).

Summary

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is required to assess the benefits and costs of its major regulations prior to promulgation. To support these assessments, in 2016 HHS issued its Guidelines for Regulatory Impact Analyses, developed under the leadership of its Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and its Department-wide Analytics Team.

This executive summary provides key takeaways from a longer report to a study that developed and pre-tested a Human Trafficking Screening Tool (HTST) with youth in runaway and homeless youth and child welfare settings. This document also includes both the full, 19-item HTST and a shorter, 6-question form of the tool.

To combat the public health crisis associated with the opioid overdose epidemic, HHS will host an Opioid Code-a-Thon on December 6-7, 2017 to develop data driven solutions to combat the opioid epidemic.  This Data Brief presents an overview of the data sources that could be leveraged to study the opioid crisis within each of the five HHS strategic areas, highlights some of the key res