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News, ideas, and analysis from J-PAL staff and affiliated professors. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive monthly email updates.

The photo depicts a close-up shot of a man distributing medication into the hands of a woman wearing a sari.

Connecting the dots from detection to cure

If governments don’t have a good picture of the health care needs of their citizens, how can they begin to address them effectively and efficiently? Governments around the world are all too familiar with this paradox, which can be particularly challenging if administrative data on health care...
Indiana state house building

State and local policy responses to COVID-19: Lessons from evidence

J-PAL North America has curated a set of randomized evaluations that tested specific policy options related to the social safety net, health, and education. Our goal is to provide actionable evidence to inform state and local leaders’ policy responses to challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amy Finkelstein

A healthy understanding

By
  • Peter Dizikes
Amy Finkelstein has changed what we know about Medicaid, Medicare, the economics of health care—and, increasingly, medical care itself.
A person is standing at the side of the road behind a cart of fruit, while a cloud of smog obscures the background.

Toward evidence-informed climate policy: A reflection on Earth Day 2020

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This Earth Day, amid the coronavirus pandemic, the connections between our health and well-being and that of the planet are more present than ever. COVID-19 and climate change share the dubious distinction of taking the greatest toll on the world’s most vulnerable.
A poster in Indonesia with health recommendations

Cushioning the poor from the COVID-19 shock

In an op-ed for Project Syndicate, Rema Hanna and Ben Olken explain that expanding social protection to reach the most vulnerable people must be a pillar of every country’s COVID-19 strategy.
Image of a PSA stating: Stay home, limit travel, save lives

Increasing adherence to COVID-19 guidelines: Lessons from existing evidence

J-PAL health sector co-chairs and staff discuss some lessons from the evidence for increasing adherence to Covid-19 guidelines
School children in Indonesia

Informing shifts in policy: Reflections on a long-run impact evaluation of a community block grant program in Indonesia

Creating good policies is a complex and dynamic process. A program can be evaluated, found to improve people’s lives, and be scaled up. However, in the longer run, these programs interact with other policies, contexts change, and policymakers are in constant need of new information and evidence to...

Sharing evidence to inform the future of health care delivery and complex care: Lessons from the Camden Coalition and J-PAL North America partnership

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In this second post of a two-part blog series on the Camden Core Model intervention, Aaron, Amy and Kathleen reflect on their key learnings from the evaluation and how study results will inform the future of the Camden Coalition’s work and the broader field of health care delivery and complex care...