Health Blogs & Reports
Extreme Heat, Coastal Flooding, and Health Disparities: Climate Change Impacts on Older Adults in New Jersey
By Josephine O’Grady. New Jersey is facing a myriad of climate challenges, including extreme heat, heavy precipitation, coastal flooding, and more natural disasters. The state is currently warming faster than the rest of the northeast [...]
Implementing Advanced Primary Care in New Jersey
By Taylor Hughes At its simplest, primary care is delivered for basic or everyday healthcare needs. You may have visited a primary care provider at a doctor’s office the last time you had an [...]
Developing Survey Instrument to Examine Equity in Access to New Jersey Virtual Schwartz Rounds Emotional Support Program for Nurses
By Irina B. Grafova, Pamela B. de Cordova, Jennifer Polakowski, and Jessica Anderson. New Jersey Virtual Schwartz Rounds (VSR) programs aim to provide a forum for nursing peers [...]
Sustainable Assisted Living Programs in New Jersey
By Ayse Akincigil. Many seniors in publicly subsidized housing need support services like chronic condition monitoring, medication management, and assistance with certain activities of living. Without such help, they risk [...]
Opioid Treatment in Emergency Departments: A Conversation with Dr. Alexis LaPietra
By Jim Lloyd, interviewing Dr. Alexis LaPietra. In the face of persistently high rates of opioid overdose and the very high risks of subsequent adverse outcomes faced by individuals who survive overdoses, New Jersey hospitals are innovating [...]
Gathering Insights for a Resilient New Jersey
By Firas Gerges (Princeton), Michel Boufadel (NJIT), Hani Nassif (Rutgers). Resilience is a critical aspect of building sustainable and thriving communities, especially in the face of increasing climate change impacts. As part of ongoing efforts to enhance community resilience [...]
The Link Between Diabetes, the Heart, and the Kidneys: Implications for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management in New Jersey
By Heather O’Donnell. For the first time, the American Heart Association identified a new medical condition called cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome (CKM), which emphasizes the strong connections between cardiovascular disease [...]
Fostering Emotional Resilience: New Jersey Nursing Emotional Well-Being Institute’s Virtual Schwartz Rounds for Nurses
By Jennifer Polakowski, Irina B. Grafova, Jessica Anderson and Pamela B. de Cordova. In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, the critical role of nurses cannot be overstated. Nurses are the heartbeat of healthcare [...]
Enabling Aging in Place: A Vital Strategy for Residents of Subsidized Senior Housing
By Ayse Akincigil, Uri Amir Koren, & Hub for Aging Collaboration The concept of "aging in place" resonates as individuals strive to maintain their residence despite evolving requirements for supportive services during the natural course of aging [...]
Emergency Department Buprenorphine Use: Where the Evidence Base Stands Today
By, Jim Lloyd, Cadence Bowden, and Kylie Davidson. Our New Jersey State Policy Lab pilot project to examine facilitators and barriers to buprenorphine use in New Jersey’s emergency departments [...]
Improving Nurses’ Well-Being – A Much Needed Intervention for the Nursing Workforce Post-COVID
By Irina B. Grafova, Jennifer Polakowski, Jessica Anderson and Pamela B. de Cordova. The World Health Organization recognizes burnout as a major workplace problem [...]
A Seamless Continuum of Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Services for Justice-Involved Individuals in New Jersey
By James M. Davy, PhD. Disrupting a Fragmented System The professional staff of the New Jersey Reentry Corporation and other public and nonprofit service providing agencies can attest to the problem of fragmented and [...]
Healthcare Inequities in Palliative Care
By Heather O’Donnell. Palliative care focuses on decreasing the emotional, mental, physical, social, and spiritual distress of individuals with life-threatening illnesses and their caregivers to improve their quality of life [...]
Aging New Jersey: Long-Term Care Challenges and Quality Ratings in Nursing Homes
By Miyeon Song, Ph.D., Jinah Yoo (Ph.D. Student), and Seungho An, Ph.D. The Challenges in Long-Term Care Quality New Jersey's elderly population is on the rise. According to a report from the New Jersey [...]
Initiating Buprenorphine Treatment in Emergency Departments: A Promising Strategy for Reducing Opioid Overdoses
By Stephen Crystal and James Lloyd. As the crisis of opioid use disorder (OUD) spread throughout the United States, the health care system took action to develop new treatments and approaches to treating people with OUD. Although methadone maintenance treatment had been implemented [...]
Barriers to Accessing Primary Care in New Jersey
By Taylor Hughes. Primary care is often considered the gateway into the healthcare system. Primary care services include preventing and treating common illnesses– but that’s not everything [...]
How to Improve Physical Activity Rates in Underserved Populations
By Heather O’Donnell. Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) aids in the prevention of premature mortality and chronic diseases, such as coronary and heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and breast and colon cancers [...]
Risk Perception of Cannabis Use in Young Adults
By Sofia Wernyj. Research suggests that the younger a person begins using cannabis, the higher the likelihood of them developing a dependence on the drug. Studies done on states that have legalized recreational marijuana indicate [...]
Food Insecurity in New Jersey – Policy Solutions and Improvements
By Ciera Gaither. The most recent Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement (CPS FSS) reported that 10.2% of American households are food insecure, impacting more than 30 million people. In comparison, 8% of New Jersey residents experienced food insecurity in 2020 [...]
The Risks of Limiting Prescribed Opioids
By Julia Snyder. One response to the opioid crisis and the high rates of opioid use disorder (OUD) throughout the country has been the creation of state policies that place restrictions on opioid prescriptions. These policies limit the duration and dosage of short-term opioid prescriptions [...]
New Jersey State Policy Lab Summer Internship Summit
The New Jersey State Policy Lab held the 2023 Summer Internship presentations at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy on August 17, 2023. The eight summer interns each presented [...]
Report Release: Access to Nature for People with Disabilities: Barriers, Challenges, and Opportunities
By Josephine O’Grady. In New Jersey, 24% of the population has a disability. People with disabilities suffer from a wide range of health disparities, including obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and depression. Through the Inclusive Healthy Communities (IHC) Grant Program, initiatives in New Jersey are underway [...]
Forever Chemicals: A Hidden Health Hazard
By Heather O’Donnell. Have you ever stopped to think about the hidden health and environmental hazards lurking in everyday products, such as non-stick pans, clothing, fast food wrappers, and microwave popcorn bags? Our society has been so focused on consumerism and industrialization that we have completely disregarded the harmful effects [...]
Growing Cybersecurity Concerns for Telehealth Services
By Heather Butler and Soumitra Bhuyan. Healthcare organizations are increasingly vulnerable to cybersecurity breaches, which put patients’ safety, privacy, and financial stability at risk. Statistics have shown that from 2014 to 2022, 14,655 data breaches were reported in the United States [...]
Satisfaction with Telehealth Among Adults with Chronic Disease
By Betia Zeng Chronic diseases are the leading causes of death and disability in the U.S., accounting for over 1.7 million deaths annually. The total cost of chronic disease totals $3.7 trillion annually, including healthcare costs and lost economic productivity [...]
New Jersey’s Nursing Shortage: Burnout, Staffing, and More
By Julia Snyder. Across New Jersey, healthcare facilities are facing a shortage of nurses as the profession struggles to sustain its workforce. About one-third of nurses have left clinical care at hospitals across NJ in the past three years [...]
Telehealth May Worsen Physician Burnout: How to Avoid It
By Aakanksha Deoli and Esther Martinez. Telehealth has been found to increase healthcare access, especially among vulnerable populations. During the pandemic, it ensured continuity of care while limiting exposure and kept mild cases outside of the hospital [...]
Telehealth for Cancer Care: Opportunities and Challenges
By Meenal Gaekwad, Heather Butler, and Soumitra Bhuyan. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a significant disruption in the healthcare system in the United States, which has increased the demand for telecommunication and technology [...]
Report Release: Youth Mental Health in New Jersey: Current Status and Opportunities for Improved Services
By Karen Lowrie and Brooke Schwartzman. Teens of today have faced major shifts in societal, environmental, community, familial, and individual spheres, heightened by racial and school-based violence and the COVID-19 pandemic, creating challenges [...]
Does Reducing Administrative Burdens Increase Trust in Government?
By Abigail Alcala. Political support of safety net and welfare programs in the United States has dwindled over the past few decades, with increasing sentiment that means-tested programs should be limited and conditional on certain behavioral requirements [...]
Medicaid Unwinding: What It is and How New Jersey Plans to Address It
By Amanda Hinton. As the public health emergency (PHE) ended last month the fate of many Medicaid enrollees still hangs in the balance. The continuous enrollment provision of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act [...]
Community and Climate Dynamics: Projections for Water Assistance in New Jersey and Beyond
By Josephine O’Grady. Due to a diverse range of water needs among communities, implementing water assistance programs continues to be a challenge in the United States. In 2016, an estimated 15 million Americans experienced water shutoffs [...]
Malpractice Risks with Telehealth: The Do’s and Don’ts
By Norelle Saada and Aakanksha Deoli Telehealth gained popularity during the pandemic as virtual visits became a necessity to limit exposure. It soon grew exponentially and reached a record high, where telehealth utilization increased by [...]
Insights on Ageism, Health Care, and the Digital Divide
By Epiphany Munz, Donita Devance, and Diane Hill, Ph.D. The World Health Organization (WHO) published the Global report on ageism to call attention to the discrimination that older adults face, along with recommendations for a [...]
Maternal Health Equity in New Jersey
By Julia Snyder. The CDC and The National Center for Health Statistics released data in March 2023 showing a dramatic rise in the U.S. maternal mortality rate from 17.4 deaths per 100,000 live births [...]
Access to Nature for People with Disabilities: Updated Findings and Implications for New Jersey
By Josephine O’Grady In New Jersey, one in five adults has a disability (CDC, 2022a). New Jersey residents with disabilities have higher rates of depression, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease than residents without a disability. [...]
Can Telemedicine Bridge the Health Equity Gap in the Latinx Population?
By C. Sophia Carvajal and Aakanksha Deoli. The rapid growth of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic was instrumental in ensuring continued healthcare access through the virtual delivery of healthcare services [...]
Ensuring Access to Nature and Outdoor Recreation: Advancing Health Equity for People with Disabilities
By Jeanne Herb. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 21% of New Jersey adults have some type of disability. CDC reports that people with disabilities are disproportionately affected by chronic diseases [...]
Youth Mental Health in New Jersey: Current Status and Opportunities for Support Service Improvement
By Karen Lowrie and Brooke Schwartzman. Childhood, particularly adolescence, has always been marked by challenges, as youth learn to navigate the world. But times are changing; youth of today have faced major shifts in societal, environmental, community, familial, and individual spheres [...]
Digital Literacy, Telehealth Equity, and Healthcare Access are Interrelated: Here is How
By Betia Zeng and Aakanksha Deoli The growth and expansion of telehealth services have been well documented since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many patients opted to use telehealth to alleviate transportation, time, and convenience barriers. While telehealth [...]
APPAM Fall 2022 Conference: SNAP Administrative Burdens Presentation
By Stephanie Walsh In the context of governmental services, administrative burdens refer to the costs and barriers experienced by individuals. When burdens are high, the costs associated with benefit of public goods or services hinder [...]
Heat or Eat? The Low-Income Home Energy Distribution Program (LIHEAP) and Its Implications for New Jersey
By Josephine O'Grady. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance program (LIHEAP) is a federal block grant program that assists low-income families with the cost of paying their utility bills in areas including extreme heat and cold, household revisions to improve energy efficiency [...]
The Fallacy of Data Aggregation and Asian Americans in Research
By Amanda Hinton. In the United States, Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial/ethnic group and are expected to become the largest immigrant group by 2055 [...]
Exploring Stress Levels of E-Scooter Riders
By Wenwen Zhang, Hannah Younes, Leigh Ann Von Hagen, Clint Andrews, and Robert B. Noland. E-scooters are a low-emission and affordable mode of transportation that contributes to environmental and mobility equity goals [...]
Behavioral Health Reimbursement and Unmet Mental Health Needs in NJ
By Nduka Vernon According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 29% of non-elderly adults (adults below the age of 65) covered by Medicaid have a mental illness.[1] In addition, of all non-elderly adults with mental illness, [...]
Intelligent Help for the Opioid Crisis Lifecycle: The Need for an Artificial Intelligence & Informatics-Based Strategy to Address the Opioid Crisis
By Shiya John, Sri Krishna Kaashyap Madabhushi, Nishitha Chidipothu, Jim Samuel. The opioid crisis is affecting all levels of American society regardless of class, ethnicity, gender, or career [...]
High Quality Health Care: How New Jersey Residents Report Their Ability to Access It
by Amanda Hinton Health care is a hot-button topic for people across the country and New Jersey is no exception. The importance of access to health care cannot be understated and many New Jersey residents [...]
A Second Pandemic: Is telehealth a solution to the mental health crisis in the post-pandemic era?
by Heather Butler and Aakanksha Deoli The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic engendered a precarious environment that significantly exacerbated existing mental health disorders and triggered new ones. According to Mental Health America, roughly one in [...]
Access Issues Still Persist in Medicaid: How Race, Location, and Physician Capacity all Play a Role
by Amanda Hinton Medicaid enrollees of color, specifically Black and Hispanic patients, are less likely to be able to access care because racial disparities exist within the Medicaid program. A 2020 study examined primary care [...]
Broadband Connection Access: An Essential Social Determinant of Health in the Digital Era
by Edgar Romero and Anita Franzione Fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth services and virtual care rapidly expanded and allowed health care providers to continue delivering patient care. However, it is important to address the [...]
Medicaid Expansion Increased Eligibility for Millions but were Racial Disparities Exacerbated in the Process?
by Amanda Hinton Medicaid has long been a vital program that provides a safety net for low-income individuals to obtain health insurance. In 2020, Medicaid covered 17.8 percent of the population in the United States. [...]
Fee-For-Service and Behavioral Health Organizations: Reimbursement for Behavioral Health Services in New Jersey
by Nduka Vernon M.D., M.P.H In New Jersey, most behavioral health services for Medicaid patients are reimbursed by NJ FamilyCare–New Jersey’s Medicaid. NJ FamilyCare/Medicaid reimbursement for a myriad of behavioral health services is enabled through [...]
Expanding telework beyond pandemics: Potential benefits and challenges for the New Jersey Telework Pilot Program
by Jinah Yoo (PhD student), Leonor Camarena, PhD, and Federica Fusi, PhD The growing demands for workplace flexibility coupled with technological advancements have made telework a key element of flexible work arrangements with public organizations. [...]
Mapping New Jersey’s overdose hotspots: Insights from state administrative data
by Gavin Rozzi Efforts to collect statewide data on the opiate crisis in New Jersey have been underway since 2014 when former Attorney General John J. Hoffman issued a directive requiring local law enforcement to [...]
Telehealth Use among Medicare Population during COVID-19: Advancements in Accessibility vs Challenges in Utilization
By Heather Butler and Aakanksha Deoli Telehealth use in the United States has skyrocketed among healthcare providers and patients since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of telehealth visits [...]
Challenges with Telehealth Adoption in Light of a Global Pandemic
Rajisha Shah, Aakanksha Deoli, MHA The COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant increase in telehealth volume and revolutionized healthcare regulatory guidelines for its use. Telehealth expanded access to care, especially during the pandemic, and made [...]
Using Creative Informatics and Artificial Intelligence to Address the Drug Addiction Crisis in New Jersey
Shiya John, Gavin Rozzi and Jim Samuel New Jersey has a persistent substance addiction problem which must be viewed in the context of laws, policies, and initiatives implemented to address it. The most recent numbers [...]
Use of Telehealth Among Essential Workers During COVID-19
Mriga Bansal and Naren Gopal Since December 2020, coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has been a significant global health concern. In February 2020, the Centers for Disease Control [...]
Is Telehealth Making Healthcare More Accessible For the LGBTQ+ Community?
Domonique Noel Across the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has made a drastic impact on the lives of LGBTQ+[1] people in several unforeseen ways. One of those ways is in healthcare delivery, as an increasing number [...]
Public Safety, Health, and Youth School Experiences: Legalizing Recreational Marijuana in New Jersey
Charles E. Menifield While the legalization of recreational marijuana will benefit state finances, policy-makers must consider potential negative externalities associated with the sale of legalized marijuana. In a forthcoming report funded by the New Jersey [...]
The Interaction of Unemployment, Mental Health, and Re-Employment
Joel C. Cantor, Carl Van Horn The COVID-19 pandemic has been a source of unprecedented stress and uncertainty across the US and globally. And we know that some groups including minorities, women, and older individuals have [...]
US Treasury Department Provides Coronavirus Relief Grants to State & Local Government
Jennifer Spiegel To help Americans recover from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress has authorized the U.S. Treasury Department to set up coronavirus relief grants to state and local governments for economic [...]