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How Not to Prepare for a Pandemic: Can We Learn From Public Health Budgetary Neglect?
Neglecting public health in state budgets for more than 10 years created an environment that was ill-suited to deal with the challenges of COVID-19 as well as other issues. On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with one of the authors of a recent paper that examined state funding trends from 2008 to 2018 and discuss what could be done in the future to avoid past mistakes.
For the second year running, the public health community has marked Public Health Week in the midst of a continuing pandemic, one which exposed glaring weaknesses in the United States’ ability to cope with COVID-19 on top of other existing public health issues, a population beset with chronic illnesses, and stark inequities in a fragmented health care system. In an article published this month in Health Affairs, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University took a close look at state spending in 8 categories of public health spending during an 11-year period to understand the extent to which funding has not kept up with pressing and emerging issues.
The stagnation in public health spending occurred during a time of rising mortality in the United States and funding, which was cut during the Great Recession, was not restored. On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Beth Resnick, DrPH, MPH, a coauthor of the study and a senior scientist in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins, where she is also the assistant dean for Public Health Practice and Training.
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Prenatal PFAS Exposure Alters Infant Vaccine-Related Immune Cells
August 1st 2025Prenatal exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class of persistent environmental pollutants, was linked to significant shifts in infant T helper cell development, raising concerns about long-term effects on vaccine response, immune regulation, and disease susceptibility.
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Trump Directs Pharma Companies on Cutting Drug Prices Under Most-Favored-Nation Order
July 31st 2025President Donald Trump has sent letters to pharmaceutical companies, aiming to compel them to lower drug prices in the US to match the lowest prices offered in other developed nations, a move that could significantly reduce costs and disrupt the current system of pharmacy benefit managers.
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Proposed SNAP Cuts Could Threaten Prevention for Cognitive Decline, Dementias
July 30th 2025Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits may slow cognitive decline in older adults, highlighting the importance of food assistance in combating Alzheimer disease and dementia risks.
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Managed Care Reflections: A Q&A With Charles N. (Chip) Kahn III, MPH
July 30th 2025To mark the 30th anniversary of The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), each issue in 2025 includes a special feature: reflections from a thought leader on what has changed—and what has not—over the past 3 decades and what’s next for managed care. The August issue features a conversation with Charles N. (Chip) Kahn III, MPH, the president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals and a longtime member of the AJMC editorial board.
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