Health & Health Care

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a broad category of diseases affecting approximately half of American adults. Despite progress in treatment and management, CVD still has a large health, mortality, and economic burden. This report to Congress describes CVD and its adverse health outcomes, as well as certain risk factors and prevention and treatment options.

To help the federal government and STLT jurisdictions better prepare for emergencies, there is a need to understand how prepared different jurisdictions are for various emergencies. However, assessing whether a jurisdiction is prepared for different emergencies is inherently complex and there is a lack of consensus among practitioners and scholars on how to approach preparedness measurement.

Nursing homes experienced unprecedented financial challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, raising concerns about a potential increase in nursing home closures.

Nursing homes have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. The purpose of this study was to examine whether there were racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic differences in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates at both the nursing home resident and nursing home facility levels. The study includes national data on COVID-19 outcomes for nursing home residents through the end of June 2021.

The evolution of pathogens to resist the drugs used to treat infections is an ongoing threat to public health, animal health, food production, and national security. Globally, a recent analysis estimated that 1.2 million deaths were caused by antibiotic-resistant (AR) bacteria in 2019, making this threat a leading cause of death for people of all ages worldwide.

Newly released data from the National Health Interview Survey indicate no statistically significant change in the uninsured rate in the first quarter of 2024 from the previous year.

This report has been prepared by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), Office on Women's Health (OWH) and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) in concert with other HHS agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This report discusses activities and outcomes of HHS programs addressing the maternal health crisis.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) makes improvements to Medicare to increase accessibility and affordability of prescription drugs for Medicare enrollees, reduce the rate of growth in Medicare drug spending, and improve the financial sustainability of the Medicare program.

In October 2022, ASPE convened a virtual technical expert panel (TEP) to discuss policy options that encourage interstate licensure among behavioral health providers.

Linking data across public systems is beneficial for a multitude of reasons including care coordination, improving research on populations engaged with multiple public services, and improving program integrity.