Overview Research indicates that the United States lags behind other high-income countries in public health. This lag relates directly to variable health system quality across U.S. communities, which have different resource bases, different healthcare needs, and different institutional structures to...

On August 25, 2021, a Systems for Action panel presented "Equity in Action: Mapping Public Health Networks to Accelerate Change" at the 2021 Public Health in the Rockies conference in Keystone, CO. A large body of evidence demonstrates how social determinants influence health and health equity for...

Overview Building on integrated data sources from Arizona’s medical, mental health, and criminal justice systems, this project explores opportunities to better coordinate services for persons with mental illness and/or substance abuse disorders. Using interactive system dynamics modeling and network...

Overview The delivery and financing systems for medical care, public health, and social and community services are powerful determinants of health and wellbeing for families and communities across the U.S. Unfortunately, these systems interact in complex and often poorly understood ways through...

Overview The University of Chicago’s Urban Labs project uses a randomized controlled trial to test the feasibility and effectiveness of a comprehensive community care model for low-income, urban-dwelling seniors at high risk of hospital admission. The model combines (1) comprehensive care physicians...

Overview Lack of coordination of health and community services with individual agencies working in isolation leads to wasted resources and poor outcomes for the most vulnerable in our nation’s neighborhoods. One method of addressing this lack of coordination is by adopting a place-based system...

Overview The prolonged activation of stress response systems among children responding to adversity such as homelessness, hunger, or neglect, is a predictor of poor health and continued poverty among low-income families. To study the health and economic impacts and systems implications of integrated...