Duke University will now offer an Undergraduate Health Policy Certificate. Developed jointly by Duke-Margolis and the Sanford School of Public Policy, this thematic certificate will provide undergraduate students with a cohesive program to study the policy foundations of the U.S. health systems and health care. The program will be built on the Center’s strong interdisciplinary approach and include an introductory course on U.S. healthcare systems, offer a range of health policy electives across campus, will include a large focus on the ability of policy to perpetuate and disrupt health inequities, and culminate in capstone seminar. In addition, two substantial thematic experiences in health policy will be required. Students earning the certificate will gain health policy knowledge to apply in their careers and lived experiences. Nathan Boucher, Associate Research Professor of Public Policy and Duke-Margolis Core Faculty member, will serve as Faculty Director.

Our April 12 Inaugural Health Policy Conference: “Health Policy in the COVID Era: Improving Equity, Access, and Affordability,” brought together more than 700 people in person and virtually to hear from a stellar line up of speakers and moderators, including experts from Duke and the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), and U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) on short- and long-term health policy challenges to health equity, accessibility, and affordability. 

Join our supporters! Duke-Margolis has more momentum, collaborators, and opportunities than ever to build on the Center’s successes and achieve a much healthier, much more innovative and a much more affordable healthcare system for the future. Your continued partnership and support are critical to ensuring that Duke-Margolis succeeds in making meaningful change to improve health and health equity at the state, national, and global level. Please consider making a gift to Duke-Margolis. Contact Shannon Reavis at shannon.reavis@duke.edu for more information about supporting the Center.

HEALTH POLICY IN ACTION

In advance of upcoming May 12^th Second Global COVID-19 Summit, the COVID Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP), led by Duke University and COVID Collaborative, and 11 leading health organizations from around the world issued a joint declaration highlighting urgent, actionable priorities for global leaders in the post-Omicron, COVID-19 era to attain a more equitable and effective worldwide pandemic response. The declaration reflects input the virtual March 29^th convening, Global Call to Action: End the COVID-19 Crisis and Prevent the Next Pandemic, by COVID GAP and Pandemic Action Network, along with Africa CDC; African Population and Health Research Center; Amref Health Africa; Andean Health Organization; Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives; College of Medicine, University of Ibadan; School of Public Health, Cayetano Heredia University; ONE Campaign; and WACI Health. The convening and report were supported by The Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Watch the convening recording.

COVID GAP and Duke-Margolis researcher Beth Boyer authored a new blog on the uncertain outlook for the global COVID-19 response. “In the aftermath of Omicron, many countries are more than ready to transition out of the emergency phase of the pandemic–particularly wealthy countries where vaccines, therapeutics and tests are readily available. But for many low- and middle-income countries, large portions of their populations remain vulnerable to severe illness and death from COVID-19,” noted the author. Read the blog here.

Duke-Margolis and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials co-published an issue brief, “Maximizing the Benefit of COVID-19 Therapeutics: Considerations for State Public Health Officials.” The brief highlights state strategies for distributing COVID-19 therapeutics and includes considerations to improve timely and equitable access to therapeutics across the nation. Co-authored by Duke-Margolis researchers Katie Huber, Matt D’Ambrosio, Andrea Thoumi, and Mark McClellan, the brief was funded in part by The Rockefeller Foundation. Read more here.

RESEARCH

Duke-Margolis Core Faculty Member Corinna Sorenson and Research Associate Mark Japinga co-authored “Low-Value Care De-implementation: Practices for Systemwide Reduction,” published in NEJM Catalyst. The commentary identifies experiences and practices from organizations that successfully moved the needle on systemwide low-value care reduction. Read more here.

Duke-Margolis Faculty and researchers Nancy Allen Lapointe, Mina Silberberg, Virginia Wang, Trevor Lentz, Deborah Kaye, Corinna Sorenson, Brystana Kaufman, and Robert Saunders discuss key considerations for designing value-based payment models to improve health equity for older adults in a new commentary, “Improving Health Equity For Older People With Serious Illness Through Value Based Payment Reform” published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Read the full piece here.

The American Heart Association published, “Improving Heart Health through Value-Based Payment White Paper,” co-authored by Duke-Margolis researchers Mark McClellan, Robert Saunders, Brianna Van Stekelenburg, and former staff Michelle DelFavero and Rachel Roiland. The paper provides recommendations to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation on opportunities to better support heart health in VBP models. Read the full white paper here.

In a new Health Affairs Forefront piece, “Ensuring Telehealth Access for North Carolina Farmworkers,” Margolis Scholar Nadia Bey writes about challenges and considerations to improve telehealth access for NC Farmworkers. Read her work here.

Equitable Access to Care: Leveraging Telehealth for Medicaid Beneficiaries in North Carolina

11:00 AM – 1:00 PM

During this town hall, Duke researchers will share results from a research study on telehealth use and access to health care for people with Medicaid insurance in North Carolina. Patients’ and health care providers will share experiences accessing and delivering care via telehealth. Town hall attendees will be invited to share their thoughts on how to use this research to inform policy change and design community-specific solutions to help reduce health inequities and improve health outcomes for people enrolled in Medicaid. A recent article in NC Health News references the data collected as part of this project, funded by the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust. For more information and to register click here.

This U.S. Food and Drug Administration public workshop, convened through a grant with the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, will review findings from the RCT-DUPLICATE Demonstration Project. The discussion will build on a previous public workshop convened by Duke-Margolis on February 16, 2021, which shared preliminary results from trial replication efforts with the goal of better understanding the strengths and limitations of observational studies. The current workshop will report on additional results and further elaborate on lessons learned from RCT-DUPLICATE as well as explore potential implications for regulatory decision-making. For more information and to register click here.

Convened by the Duke-Margolis Real-World Evidence Collaborative, this public conference will provide stakeholders a venue for reviewing progress to-date on strategic real-world data (RWD) and real-world evidence (RWE) policy development activities and on promising future applications of these data and evidence. Discussions will cover shared themes across multiple stakeholders’ public comments on recent FDA draft guidance for RWD and RWE, highlighting areas of alignment as well as opportunities for RWE moving forward.

The event will conclude with forward looking discussions on key actions and next steps to advance the regulatory use of RWE, highlighting how this could be accomplished within the context of a national data infrastructure that could account for evidentiary needs among broad groups of stakeholders. The discussion also will consider ongoing Congressional developments around RWD and RWE within these contexts. For more information and to register click here.

Collaboration between academic researchers, industry, clinicians, patient organizations, and regulators can drive innovation and facilitate the use of translational science during clinical development. This workshop will focus on best practices and provide use cases for successfully bringing forward evidence generated through translational science for regulatory submissions. Stakeholders will discuss potential barriers to using translational science to support therapeutic development and strategies to overcome those barriers. For more information and to register click here.

Duke-Margolis and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) collaborated to host a two-day virtual public workshop focused on identifying gaps in existing opioid prescriber education offerings and core competencies that should be included in educational content for opioid prescribers and other healthcare providers, including prescriber education under a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). Meeting recordings and materials can be found the event webpage.

Margolis Scholar Shreyas Hallur has been named to the second class of Nakayama Scholars. The Nakayama Public Service Scholarship is part of the university’s efforts to encourage students to use their Duke experience to engage with the large challenges facing communities around the world. You can read more about the 2022 scholarship class here. Join us in congratulating Shreyas on this achievement.

In the newest episode of The Scope, a podcast from the Student Collaborative on Health Policy at Duke University, Margolis intern Sophie Hurewitz encapsulates the importance of interdisciplinary learning as it pertains to health policy saying, “Elijah (Elaijah Lapay) and I are both prime exemplars of how health policy is really tied to so many different disciplines and areas of study.…my real passion at Duke has become looking at academic subject matter through a policy lens and this is something I didn’t expect would become such a strong interest of mine but I would really encourage future students and those who are interested in pursuing careers related to health policy or health equity to explore while they are here at Duke. Really everything is connected to health policy and health equity. One of my mentors…Dr. Rushina Cholera once said that medicine is social, and it is political, and it is economic. It really is all of the above and I think that almost every academic area of study has some light to shed on health policy and health equity.” Listen to this most recent episode now.

Health Equity Policy Fellow Andrea Thoumi and fellow members of her Bass Connections Leadership Team were selected as finalists for the 2022 Bass Connections Leadership Award. The selection committee “was struck by how your leadership team works collaboratively to set a vision for the project, collect and respond to student input, and create a strong team culture.” Congratulations, Andrea and team!

The Bass Connections Team “Understanding Variations in Hospital Costs in Support of Value-Based Care Decisions,” led by Dr. Marcelo Cerullo and Dr. Yuqi Zhang, is pleased to announce that four of their students will be presenting poster and podium presentations at the 2022 AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting. The students will present their individual projects on hospital compliance with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Price Transparency mandate and price variation of different surgical procedures on June 4-7 in Washington, DC. The four students include:

For more information about the meeting and the schedule of presentations click here.

Margolis Scholars Keren Hendel and Farrah Madanay presented work on COVID-19 strategies to improve health equity among Latinx populations this month. Keren shared experiences, lessons learned, successes, and barriers based on her experience working with LATIN-19 during the past two years at the Community-Engaged Scholarship Collaborative’s Lunch and Learn, “Latinx Advocacy Team & Interdisciplinary Network for COVID-19: A Successful Model of Bi-directional Multi Sector Collaboration,” hosted by Duke Office of Civic Engagement, Duke Clinical and Translational Services Institute, Duke Law, and the Office of Durham and Community Affairs. Farrah participated in the research slam at the Duke Human Rights Center’s “Global Ideas, Local Impact 2022” event on March 31, during which she presented work by the 2021-2022 Bass Connections class, Bridging the Health Equity Gap for COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake in Durham.

Margolis Scholar Keren Hendel’s article in Health Affairs Forefront, “The Case For Investment In Mobile Health Care Solutions To Reduce Health Inequities,” was published as the winner of AcademyHealth Disparities Interest Group’s student essay contest. As part of the contest, students were asked to write an editorial on any health disparities topic of their choice, with a focus on the specific causes or consequences of disparities and/or solutions with the most potential to reduce disparities. In this op-ed, Keren makes the case that mobile health solutions are an important tool, beyond COVID-19, in improving health equity and highlights the important work of LATIN-19. Read the full article here.

Duke-Margolis Digital Health Policy Fellow Christina Silcox took part in Duke in DC’s “Vaccines and Countermeasures to Prepare for Future Pandemics” briefing on April 11, 2022 to discuss pandemic policy successes and challenges, as well as policy solutions to the changing and future pandemic needs. Click here for a synopsis of the event.

Center Director Mark McClellan will be speaking as part of the Milken Institute Event in Los Angeles on May 2 between 4:00–6:00 PM (PST) on the topic of “How Can We Ensure Access to Health Innovation for All.” More information about the event can be found here and Dr. McClellan’s session can be livestreamed using this link.

Christina Silcox, digital health policy fellow at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, moderated ANSI’s new meet-up series that explores artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare and will bring together stakeholders to make connections and discuss various topics of interest. More about the program can be found here.

Sophie Rose, MA, MBA, has joined us as an Operations Coordinator. In this new role for the Center, Sophie will partner with members of the executive leadership team to operationalize priorities and drive a variety of administrative operational endeavors.

Prior to joining Duke-Margolis, Sophie worked in a variety of settings in both Europe and the United States, most recently with Duke Student Affairs in the offices of Student Engagement and Housing and Residential Life. Sophie earned an MBA from the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris and a master's degree in Art History from La Sorbonne in Paris.

Do you want to be part of health policy in action? Do you want to work on the leading health policy issues confronting cities, states, the nation, and the globe? The Duke-Margolis team is a dynamic, high impact national leader in leveraging policy to ensure high quality, affordable care for all. Multiple positions are currently available and new positions have been posted this week! Click here to view all of our career opportunities.