Topic: Health

A young child leans onto a desk with arms folded and stares at a small marshmallow Feature / Behavioral Decision Making

New Study Disavows Marshmallow Test’s Predictive Powers

Test's originator was a central co-author but died before its completion

Two staffers wearing face masks hand dishes to women in the senior living center Research Brief / COVID-19

More Staffers: More COVID-19 Exposures and More Nursing Home Deaths

Reliance on part-timers raises headcounts and dangers to patients

A side view of feet on a scale Research Brief / Health

Modest Financial Incentives Help with Weight Loss

Tying payments to weight, rather than behaviors, marginally more effective

Research Brief / Debt

Medical Debt in Collection Estimated at $140 Billion

Poorer residents of states refusing to expand Medicaid hit hardest

City street Research Brief / Health Care

Maximizing Life Saving through Better Placement of Defibrillators

Just putting one where the last cardiac arrest occurred isn’t optimal — more calculations to get to fewer steps

Pre-adolescent boy wearing in red over a red background with a cool attitude. Research Brief / Behavioral Decision Making

Major Adolescent Stress Reduces Connection to Future Self

And thinking less about one’s adult life can reduce the pursuit of higher education

Hospital emergency room Research Brief / Health Care

Machine Learning Can Help Reduce Post-Surgical Hospital Readmissions

A model outperformed simpler statistical approaches in predicting which patients would encounter trouble

Research Brief / COVID-19

Link Between Unvaccinated Staff and Nursing Home Deaths

Higher morbidity found where fewer staffers are vaccinated against COVID-19

An industrial chimney emitting smoke Research Brief / Health Care

Like Checking the Weather: Air-Quality App Charts Local Pollution

Information helps users decide when, and whether, to venture outside or exercise

Two doctors performing surgery Research Brief / Health Care

Kidney Transplant Outcomes Suffer at Clinics That Add Liver Transplants

Younger-patient mortality rate nearly triples, 20 years of data indicate

Research Brief / COVID-19

Israel and COVID-19: Political Dissension But a Unified National Plan

Varying ideologies contributed to early spread in small nation

An overhead view of cars waiting in line for vaccine distribution Research Brief / COVID-19

In COVID-19, Should the Logistics Tail Have Wagged the Vaccine Dog?

Balancing vaccine efficacy against need to quickly inoculate more people

A row of filing cabinets Research Brief / Health Care

Huge Spending — But Little Sharing of Research Results — on Cancer Drugs

U.S. efforts to encourage transparency widely ignored by companies

An illustration featuring text that reads "happiness" and other items such as scissors and a ruler Research Brief / Happiness

How-To Guide for Happiness Surveys, Which Increasingly Drive Public Policy

Advice for researchers aims to help improve both data collection and its interpretation

Image of a researcher working with equipment in a medical lab Research Brief / Health Care

How Publicly Funded Research Leads to Cancer Drug Trials

Pharmaceutical companies are better able to identify promising new applications for existing drugs

Male nurse pushing a patient in a wheelchair Research Brief / Health Care

How Nursing Homes Selectively Admit Patients for Optimal Profits

When beds are limited, turning away the sickest and poorest boosts margins