Stanford Health Policy

09/04/2026

Interested in getting a PhD or MS in health policy from one of the best programs out there—but not sure how to go about it? Join us next week for info webinars and learn more about the degree programs and application process. Dates and times: https://bit.ly/4gDVsga

09/04/2026

Millions of beneficiaries across 44 state programs will have their eligibility re-examined by January 2027. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R.1), adults who became eligible for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act must complete qualifying work activities or demonstrate an exemption, and states are now required to check Medicaid eligibility at least twice a year.

Facing compressed timelines and limited staff, states are looking to AI to automate the process; six agencies have already committed to using AI tools, and 21 more are considering it.

SHP’s Michelle Mello, JD, PhD, a professor of law and health policy, and Himaja Nagireddy, MS, a second-year doctoral student, write in this JAMA Health Forum article that AI could help states manage this looming workload if deployed carefully. If rolled out too broadly or too quickly, however, AI could make the law's effects on beneficiaries even worse.

Stanford Health Policy is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford School of Medicine

08/25/2026

As global temperatures climb, a growing number of older adults are facing a point where their bodies simply can’t keep up, a state that physiologists call “uncompensable heat stress.” This is when sweating and other biological cooling mechanisms are overwhelmed and core body temperature keeps rising unchecked.

Previous projections have applied heat limits for healthy young adults to all age groups, overlooking the greater vulnerability in people 65 years and older. But with the world’s population aging rapidly – due to longer life expectancies and falling fertility rates – this could seriously underestimate future heat risks for elderly people.

A new study published in The Lancet Planetary Health by Stanford Health Policy (SHP) researchers Qinqin Kong, PhD, and Eran Bendavid, MD, MS, asks the question: if you factor in how age affects heat tolerance, how much does that change predictions of who’s at risk of heat-related illness and death?

A global analysis finds that aging populations may face intolerable heat more often, in more places, and for longer than previous estimates showed.

08/25/2026

When you wolf down a Whopper or binge a Netflix series, you probably don't think about the long-term health consequences—or who ultimately pays for them.

But SHP’s Sara Singer does. A new study published in the American Journal of Health Promotion by Singer, PhD, MBA, and colleagues at Building H calculates the hidden health costs companies create when their products affect our eating, movement, and lifestyle.

The results were striking.

Stanford Health Policy is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford School of Medicine

08/25/2026

Americans pay more for health care than any other nation, but few know that the system's current model reflects nearly a century of PR campaigns and competing interests.

SHP’s Marcella Alsan, MD, PhD, MPH, joins host Maxwell Dorey on his podcast, Marginal Babble, to examine how today's private health-care system was built through a coordinated campaign by the American Medical Association (AMA) and PR firms like Whitaker & Baxter, which transformed a voluntary, doctor-led prepayment model into the foundation of the modern industry.

Americans are paying more for healthcare than almost any other nati...

07/21/2026

SHP’s Michelle Mello, JD, PhD, joins Chip Kahn on KFF’s podcast The Business of Health podcast to talk about how artificial intelligence is transforming everyday medicine. Mello, a professor of health policy and of law, is co-leader of Stanford Medicine’s Healthcare Ethical Assessment Lab for AI, and one of the country’s leading experts on patient safety and accountability in medicine.

In this conversation, Mello and Kahn addresses the key questions about the rapidly expanding use of AI in medicine: who makes the rules, who ensures the technology gets it right—and who answers when it doesn't?

AI is racing into everyday medicine. The rules of the road are stil...

07/20/2026

The 2026 Rosenkranz Prize winner is tackling a tropical disease most people have never heard of—yet it infects some 300-600 million people worldwide.

Strongyloidiasis, caused by a microscopic parasitic roundworm, mostly impacts people in low- to middle-income countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South and Central America. While it typically causes mild symptoms such abdominal pain, diarrhea, hives—the Strongyloides stercoralis parasite can be a ticking time bomb and can rapidly replicate in infected people who become immunosuppressed, leading to disseminated disease that has more than a 60% fatality rate.

Stanford Health Policy is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford School of Medicine

07/20/2026

A renowned panel of global health experts—including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice—told the 2026 Rosenkranz Global Health Policy Symposium their community has undergone a seismic shift in the last year with the dismantling of USAID, the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization and sweeping cuts to foreign aid, research and development.

Yet they believe this momentous inflection point offers public health officials an opportunity to build better institutions, and they gave the next generation of global health leaders a constructive path forward.

Stanford Health Policy is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford School of Medicine