Past Events
Future of Health Care Financing
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
U.S. Health care spending will approach $5 trillion dollars this year, and regardless of the outcome of the election, managing this staggering cost will be a priority for policymakers and the public. Meanwhile, private equity is increasingly a player in health care finance, which could bring risks as well as opportunities. This policy forum brings together two leaders who have shaped health care financing debates in elected office and in academic research, respectively. Please join us for a lively, high stakes discussion featuring Assemblymember Jim Wood and Professor Liran Einav of Stanford University.
Speakers:
Jim Wood, Assemblymember, California State Assembly, 2nd District
Liran Einav, Charles R. Schwab Professor of Economics, Stanford University
Easing the Burden of Long COVID
Thursday, March 7, 2024
The worst of the COVID pandemic seems to have passed, with infections and deaths having dropped significantly. But for people with long COVID, the pandemic is still a daily reality. Join us for a fascinating discussion about the nature and treatment of long COVID and its impact on our society, featuring Drs. Hector Bonilla and Gopi Shah Goda of Stanford University.
Speakers:
Hector Bonilla, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Co-Director of Stanford Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome Clinic, Stanford University
Gopi Shah Goda, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Associate Professor of Health Policy (by courtesy) and Professor of Economics (by courtesy), Stanford University
The Cost of Cancer
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Medicine has never had as many effective treatments for cancers, but neither has the cost of these treatments ever been so high. This dilemma was summed up in Vanderbilt University Professor Stacie B. Dusetzina's widely discussed New England Journal of Medicine article as "Your Money or Your Life". Join Dr. Dusetzina and Stanford Professor Alyce Adams for a fascinating discussion of policies that can prevent cancer patients from having to choose between health and bankruptcy.
Speakers:
Stacie B. Dusetzina, Professor Health Policy and Ingram Professor of Cancer Research, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Alyce Adams, Professor of Health Policy, Epidemiology and Population Health and of Pediatrics (by Courtesy), Stanford Medicine
AI and Healthcare
Friday, April 14, 2023
Artificial intelligence is an increasing presence in American life, and its potential applications in health care are endless. Some promise it will soon revolutionize health care, but others think it's overhyped. Looking ahead, how might clinicians and patients negotiate an AI-enabled health care system? Please join two leading experts as they debate and discuss the future of AI in healthcare.
Speakers:
Bob Kocher, Partner, Venrock
Sherri Rose, Professor of Health Policy
Reproductive Health: Now What?
Wednesday, November 18, 2022
Health care providers, health policymakers, and millions of American women are grappling with the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Multiple states have moved to restrict access to abortion, and at least some policymakers have indicated willingness to revisit other reproductive rights precedents, such as those allowing access to contraception.
This Stanford Health Policy Forum brings two nationally-recognized Stanford-based experts together in conversation to explore the implications of the new landscape as well as to predict what the future might hold.
Speakers:
Michelle Mello, JD, PhD, Professor of Law and of Health Policy
Leslee Subak, MD, Professor and Chair of Obstetrics & Gynecology
Climate Change: A threat to human health
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Changes to the Earth's temperature and weather are not just a political and economic challenge. They also threaten human health, creating risks for infectious disease spread, unstable food supplies, and deaths from extreme weather events.
Speakers:
Marshall Burke, PhD, Associate Professor of Earth System Science
Erin Mordecai, PhD, Associate Professor of Biology
Responding to Gun Violence in America
February 4, 2020
Nearly 40,000 Americans die from gunshot wounds each year. Many people despair of ever reducing the public health and safety damage of firearms, but effective, evidence-informed policies are available. Join us as leading experts reveal ways to reduce the prevalence of gun violence and to care for its victims.
Speakers:
Maya Rossin-Slater, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Health Services Research)
Kathy Staats, Clinical Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine
David Studdert, Professor of Medicine, Primary Care Outcomes Research and of Law
The Future of American Health Care Policy: A Conversation with Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren
October 7, 2019
The national policy landscape around health care is turbulent and confusing, with competing proposals being debated in Congress and in the presidential campaign. To understand where the nation might and should go in health care policy, please join this candid conversation with U.S. Congresswoman and Stanford alum Zoe Lofgren. For decades, Lofgren has been a national leader in numerous critical social policy areas, including immigration, technology, and health. In this conversation, she will analyze the politics and policy of the U.S. health care system, as well as discuss her personal journey from Stanford to Washington, D.C.
Speaker:
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, Representative of the 19th District of California, US Congress
Suicide in America: Deaths of Despair
February 25, 2019
Suicide is declining in most of the world but is rising in America, particularly in rural and economically struggling parts of the country. Why do nearly 50,000 Americans a year take their own lives, and what can be done to prevent this tragedy. Nationally recognized scholars Professor Anne Case of Princeton University and Rebecca Bernert of Stanford University will share their perspectives on suicide and engage with your questions and ideas.
Speakers:
Anne Case, PhD, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs Emeritus, Princeton University
Rebecca Bernert, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Public Mental Health and Population Sciences), Stanford Medicine
Painkiller: How OxyContin Ignited the Opioid Epidemic
November 2, 2018
Barry Meier was the first journalist to shed a national spotlight on the abuse of OxyContin. He was a member of the New York Times reporting team that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Meier is also a two-time winner of the George Polk Award. His reporting at the Times concentrated on the intersection of business, medicine, and the public's health. During his career, he has exposed the dangers of various drugs and medical products, including a defective heart device and a generation of flawed artificial hips. Meier is the author of A World of Hurt: Fixing Pain Medicine's Biggest Mistake, Missing Man: The American Spy Who Vanished in Iran, and Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic.
Speaker:
Barry Meier, New York Times Journalist
A Conversation with Howard Koh, MD, PhD
April 25, 2018
A conversation with Harvard University Professor Howard Koh, MD, MPH, one of the leading health policy thinkers in the United States. Dr. Koh discusses his service as a State Commissioner of Health and as Assistant Secretary of Health in the Obama Administration, with a special focus on his work combating tobacco and opioid addiction and reducing health disparities. He also shares his perspective on the current state of the U.S. health care system and where it needs to reform.
Speaker:
Howard Koh, Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership, Harvard University
How far should scientists go with data sharing? A debate about Open Science
September 13, 2017
Scientists are facing increasing calls to be more transparent with their methods, study results and data. Advocates of open science believe that more broadly sharing data will improve the application and replicability of research, but critics warn of unintended consequences. This health policy forum features two distinguished speakers with different views on open science -- please attend and join in on this important debate.
Speakers:
P.J. Devereaux, MD, PhD, PRCP(C), Director of the Division of Cardiology, McMaster University
Nigam H. Shah, MBBS, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Biomedical Informatics), Stanford Medicine
Mental Illness: A Global Challenge
November 16, 2016
Mental Illness is a leading cause of disability and mortality around the globe. Even in wealthy countries, only about half of people with mental illness receive adequate care. In low and middle income nations, almost all go untreated by trained mental health professionals. Yet many other healing resources can be activated in low-resource countries, creating opportunities for people with mental illness to be helped and indeed to thrive. This Health Policy Forum engages the enormous challenges and opportunities of global mental health.
Speakers:
Vikram Patel, PhD, Co-Founder, NGO Sangath and the Centre for Global Mental Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Angela Garcia, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Longevity: The Benefits and Burden of an Aging Society
April 26, 2016
Health policy planners throughout the developed world are bracing for large increases in the number of elderly individuals. U.S. life expectancy is now at 79 - a historical high - and unprecedented number of Americans are breezing into their 80s, 90s and beyond. Although this poses challenges for society's health care and social welfare policies, it also presents opportunities. How well people fare in late life and what they have to offer others can be enhanced through their behaviors adn choices, which in turn are shaped by policies, programs and social programs.
Speakers:
Lesley Stahl, Broadcast Journalist, 60 Minutes, Author "Becoming Grandma"
Laura Carstensen, PhD, Founding Director of Psychology, Farleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy
E-Cigarettes: A Threat or an Opportunity for Public Health?
October 26, 2015
E-cigarettes are nicotine-delivery products that are becoming extraordinarily popular, particularly among young adults. The current debate in public health is whether e-cigarettes will replace tobacco cigarettes and thereby improve health, or re-normalize smoking, which would be a public health disaster. This forum featured distinguished national health experts with markedly different views on whether e-cigarettes are a threat or a benefit to public health.
Speakers:
David B. Abrams, PhD, Executive Director, The Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies. Professor, Department of Health, Behavior and Society, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Professor of Oncology Georgetown University Medical Center, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center
Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, Professor in the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University
Robert Jackler, MD, Sewall Professor and Chair, Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, Stanford University. Lead Researcher, Stanford Research Into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising
The Problem of Prescription Opioids
April 9, 2015
Prescription opioids provide much needed relief to people in acute pain, but are also widely misused, leading to addiction and over one thousand overdose deaths per month. As the annual number of prescriptions has soared to over 200 million, policymakers have been struggling with how to limit the risks of these medications while at the same time keeping them available for people in pain. In this Stanford Health Policy Forum, addiction medicine expert Anna Lembke, MD and pain medicine expert Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, will debate and discuss how to balance the benefits and costs of prescription opioids.
Speakers:
Anna Lembke, MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford Medicine
Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, Immediate Past-President, American Academy of Pain Medicine; Chief, Division of Pain Medicine, Stanford Medicine
Controlling the Cost of Health Care
October 28, 2014
The United States health care system is a $3 trillion enterprise, the largest in the developed world. Yet Americans often experience more severe access and quality problems, and spend much more for the same procedures and medications, than patients in other countries. Projections of the future cost of health care are unsustainable, yet many well-intended cost-control efforts have been ineffective. This forum features two renowned experts who will discuss the causes of and potential solutions to the extraordinary cost of American health care. Physician, journalist and Stanford alum Elisabeth Rosenthal has drawn national attention to the issue through her widely praised “Paying Till It Hurts” series in the New York Times. She will be joined by Professor Doug Owens, the director of Stanford’s Center for Health Policy and an expert in health care cost-effectiveness research.
Speakers:
Doug Owens, MD, Henry J. Kaiser, Jr. Professor, and Director of the Center for Health Policy (CHP) in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and of the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research (PCOR) in the Department of Medicine and School of Medicine, Stanford Medicine
Elisabeth Rosenthal, MD, Writer, New York Times
Ending the Organ Donation Shortage
July 28, 2014
Over 100,000 Americans are currently waiting for a transplant of a kidney or other vital organ. Because the demand outstrips the supply, thousands of people a year die before a suitable organ becomes available. One proposed solution to this problem, put forward most prominently by Dr. Sally Satel, is to compensate people for donating organs. But many ethicists, including Professor David Magnus, have reservations about this approach. While other leaders in the transplant field, such as Tom Mone, have successfuly used other approaches to increase organ donation rates. Would paying people for organ donations be effective and would it be just? Are there other ways to address the growing shortage of life-saving organs?
Speakers:
David Magnus, PhD, Thomas A. Raffin Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Ethics, and Professor of Pediatrics, Stanford Medicine
Tom Mone, Chief Executive Officer, OneLegacy
Sally Satel, MD, Lecturer in Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine
Serious Mental Illness: How Can We Promote Public Health and Public Safety?
October 10, 2013
This forum focused on a dialogue concerning what the health care system and the general public can do to promote the well-being of families who are facing mental illness.
Speakers:
Sheriff Leroy Baca, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
Harold Pollack, PhD, Helen Ross Professor, School of Social Service Administration
Laura Roberts, MD, MA, Chairman and Katharine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford Medicine
Health Care in Practice: A Journalist's Perspective
March 20, 2013
This Stanford Health Policy Forum focused on Pam Belluck's new book and her broad array of reporting for the Times on the topics of medicine and health care.
Speaker:
Pam Belluck, Health and Science Writer, The New York Times, Author of Island Practice
Why We Get Fat: Trends and Food Policy
November 27, 2012
This Stanford Health Policy FOrum focused on obesity, along with diet trends and food policy.
Speakers:
Christopher Gardner, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Nutrition Studies, Stanford Prevention Research Center
Gary Taubes, Science Journalist, Author and Co-Founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative
The Future of Health Care in America: New Hopes, New Fears
September 14, 2012
This forum focused on the future of health care in America with Ezekiel Emanuel, Chair of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker:
Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD, Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor, Vice Provost for Global Initiatives and Chair, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Former Health Policy Advisor to the Director Office of Management and Budget, The White House
The Future of Children's Health in California
June 20, 2011
This forum focused on a dialogue concerning the future of children's health in California.
Speakers:
Christopher Dawes, President and CEO, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital
Diana Dooley, Secretary, California Health and Human Services Agency
Shashank Josi, MD, Assistant Professor in Psychiatry & Behavioral Science - Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Education
Paul Wise, MD, MPH, Professor of Child Health and Society, Stanford Medicine