Addiction is a chronic medical condition that carries significantly elevated risk of morbidity and mortality, as the sequelae of substance use disorders (SUD) can be severe and life-altering. While evidence-based treatments for SUD exist, many people face barriers to accessing care. For example, of the approximately 20 million people living with addiction in the United States in 2019, only 12.2% received ...

Meet Anna. She’s a 47-year-old woman with diabetes and high blood pressure—that is, hypertension. When I first met Anna three years ago, she’d recently moved to Massachusetts and obtained health insurance for the first time in two decades. During her first clinic visit, Anna’s blood sugar was wildly uncontrolled—a clear indication of diabetes. She felt dizzy and fatigued, but this was her baseline. We spent over an hour, during a visit scheduled for 20 minutes, working with the pharmacist and health insurance company to find an insulin prescription for which she could ...

More than six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, child care solutions for families remain scarce. A high-stakes problem typically confined to parents with children younger than five, lack of child care has now become a near-universal challenge, with remote K-12 learning upending care infrastructure for families with school-aged children as well. Consistent failure to provide public funding to the child care and early education sector—both traditionally and in this moment of crisis—is taking a heavy toll:

"My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere, you must run twice as fast as that." - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland This is the only quote which I clearly recall from my early childhood, and it took me several years to fully understand its meaning. It is truly universally applicable, and physicians are not exempt—I believe most of us are undeniably permanently running at least twice as fast, attempting to contribute to the (r)evolution of medicine, and also not lag behind. ...

Due to early misconceptions that COVID-19 didn’t lead to severe disease or death in children, US state surveillance dashboards were not set up to track the course of the pandemic among age-specific groups. Over time, state reporting for children has gradually improved, and The COVKID Project has been synthesizing and sharing data for children and teens since late April 2020. Although 49 of 50 states now report COVID-19 case counts by age (with New York being the exception), only 2 ...

With more than 6 million diagnosed cases and nearly 200,000 deaths in the United States, the novel coronavirus is our nation’s most pressing public health crisis. And further, physical distancing measures have resulted in significant

In times of crisis, the most vulnerable populations are often the ones most affected. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, immigrant children arriving to the United States already faced difficulties navigating a complex and intimidating system to seek refuge. However, in the six months since the COVID pandemic fundamentally altered our way of life, the

Her eyes were tired but happy above her surgical mask. Her breathing was quick, as she sat with her 2-day old son cradled in her arms. Ana looked down as he started to wiggle, rooting for a meal. She’d been discharged from the hospital 24 hours after her vaginal delivery, her COVID-related cough and difficulty breathing improved but not resolved. Ana and her son had a shared respiratory clinic appointment with a family physician—one ...

We’ve all seen the headlines—primary care practices are in trouble: “America’s looming primary care crisis,” “Fewer than 10% of primary care practices have stabilized operations amid COVID-19 pandemic,” and “