Introduction Risk assessment, which can target preventive care to individuals’ disease risk, is becoming an increasingly important strategy for improving population health. However, numerous barriers limit the collection and synthesis of the data necessary for risk-stratification. Leveraging health IT may prove critical in overcoming these barriers and improving uptake of preventive guidelines....

Widespread integration of market-based incentives into healthcare systems calls for — and has elicited — increasing adoption of risk adjustment. By deterring selection, risk adjustment helps to assure fair and efficient payments among health insurers or capitated provider groups. However, since conventional risk adjustment allocates funds among regions or insurers according to current populatio...

Identification and management the 'critical risk areas' where hotspot lead exposures are a potential risk to human health, become a major focus of public health efforts in China. But the knowledge of health risk assessment of lead pollution at regional and national scales is still limited in China. In this paper, under the guidance of 'sources-pathways-receptors' framework, regional human healt...

OBJECTIVE We sought to examine the legal and ethical implications of workplace health risk reduction programs (HRRPs) using health risk assessments, individually focused risk reduction, and financial incentives to promote compliance. METHODS We conducted a literature review, analyzed relevant statutes and regulations, and considered the effects of these programs on employee health privacy. ...

We read with interest ‘Public health research in the UK: a report with a European perspective’ by McCarthy et al. published in June 2014. We are conscious that, since the study was undertaken in 2010, the public health research landscape in the UK has developed considerably. A number of programmes were set up in 2009 which now have strong portfolios of public health research. All parts of the N...

In the context of ongoing debate about negative stereotyping and poor risk assessment practices with minority ethnic groups in British society, this article attempts to develop an account of the dynamics of discrimination against black people in the area of mental health policy and practice. It is argued that a framework for the analysis of discrimination can be usefully constructed in terms of...

There exist a number of general considerations beyond predictive accuracy when selecting a risk assessment method for use in risk adjustment. In particular, these issues relate to the practical side of this process, such as whether it can be implemented and administered, whether the data exist to support its application, and what types of incentives does it provide to perform risk selection, ga...

Army STARRS is the largest and most comprehensive research project of mental health ever conducted in the U.S. Army. The project was designed to examine a broad range of risk and resilience (protective) factors across a complex set of outcomes. Army STARRS scientists created a series of extensive databases with the potential to achieve groundbreaking results. These databases will allow scientis...

The quality of assessment of older people with health and social care needs has for some time been a concern of policy makers, practitioners, older people and carers in the United Kingdom and internationally. This article seeks to address a key aspect of these concerns, namely whether sufficient expertise is deployed when, as a basis for a care plan and service allocation, an older person’s eli...

BACKGROUND Randomized controlled trials provide robust data on the efficacy of interventions rather than on effectiveness. Health technology assessment (HTA) agencies worldwide are thus exploring whether real-world data (RWD) may provide alternative sources of data on effectiveness of interventions. Presently, an overview of HTA agencies' policies for RWD use in relative effectiveness assessmen...