36 papers
Health policy sits at the crossroads of medical science and public decision-making, shaping how communities access care and respond to health crises. This field examines everything from insurance regulations and vaccine distribution to the economic impact of new treatments, translating complex research into real-world guidelines that affect us all.
On Gist.Science, we curate the latest preprints from medRxiv specifically focused on health policy, ensuring you never miss a critical study before it reaches formal publication. For every new paper in this category, our team generates both a clear, plain-language overview and a detailed technical summary, making these vital insights accessible to everyone from policymakers to concerned citizens. Below are the most recent health policy studies from medRxiv, now explained and ready for you to explore.
By applying a novel MAIHDA-DiD approach to European survey data, this study reveals that while colorectal cancer screening programmes increased overall uptake, they failed to reduce—and potentially widened—inequalities by disproportionately benefiting already advantaged subgroups, particularly those not living alone.
This Bayesian spatial analysis of Texas counties reveals that late-stage breast cancer burden is significantly higher in rural areas with limited mammography access and lower population density, highlighting the need for geographically targeted interventions that address both infrastructure gaps and broader structural barriers to preventive care.
Through a stakeholder-led prioritization exercise using the CHNRI method, this study identified and ranked 61 context-specific maternal and newborn health research priorities in The Gambia, with a strong emphasis on delivery-focused implementation and health systems research—particularly pre-transfer emergency management—to inform the country's successor RMNCAH plan and align research investment with national needs.
This cross-sectional survey of Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine (TCIM) journal editors reveals that while most respondents are familiar with open science practices, particularly open access and preprints, they hold varying perceptions regarding the importance, benefits, and challenges of integrating these practices into editorial and peer review processes.
This cross-sectional study of Syrian pharmaceutical professionals reveals that while innovation attitudes and IP literacy are high, actual innovation practice remains low due to insufficient innovation readiness, highlighting the critical role of contextual and institutional enabling factors in resource-constrained settings.
This paper proposes a "Paradox of Expansion" hypothesis, arguing that increasing medical school quotas in South Korea without concurrently addressing low compensation and high legal liability risks may ultimately reduce the number of active physicians in essential specialties by lowering the expected value of entering these fields.
This study analyzes the first year of England's Pharmacy First service, revealing that it successfully delivered over 2.2 million consultations primarily for acute conditions through self-referral, though uptake and operational patterns varied significantly across geographic regions and were influenced by local healthcare contexts and pharmacy characteristics.
This study analyzes retail markets in Uganda to demonstrate that the affordability of intoxication is driven by access to low-cost, high-strength ethanol through informal channels and plastic packaging, particularly in rural and slum areas, suggesting that alcohol policies should target ethanol content and informal market regulation rather than just beverage prices.
This paper introduces a simplified spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP)-inspired framework that converts asynchronous electronic health record data into interpretable directional transition features, demonstrating improved risk prediction for acute kidney injury and postoperative pancreatic cancer recurrence compared to traditional static models while preserving clinical interpretability.
This retrospective study of 371 stroke patients in Ondo State, Nigeria, reveals that the vast majority (85.4%) presented late for care, a delay significantly driven by seeking initial treatment at non-hospital facilities rather than directly at a hospital.