FEATURE STORIES

Historic Fundraising Milestone

LDI raised $5.5 million to expand the SUMR program and health care access initiatives, made possible by a $3.5M gift from the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund and remarkable community support that met a $1M matching challenge. 

Strengthening U.S. Health Data

Julia Lynch outlined six strategies the U.S. can adopt to strengthen its health data systems, drawing on lessons from Europe.

Disparities in Pediatric Cardiac Arrest Survival

Research by Amanda O’Halloran, Garret Keim, Cody-Aaron Gathers, Joseph Rossano, and Nadir Yehya found that Black and Hispanic children have higher death rates than white children after in-hospital CPR.

Risk-Based Contracts Did Not Change Care

Aaron Schwartz, Amol Navathe, Sumedha Chhatre, and colleagues found no reductions in health care use or low-value care in a national study of six years of Medicare Advantage risk-based contracts.

Improving Post-Hospital Care for Older Adults

Mary Naylor reflected on her research in advancing the nurse-led Transitional Care Model.

 UPCOMING EVENTS

Fireside Chat with Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA

Wednesday, December 3, 2025
4:00–5:30 p.m. ET

Loneliness and Public Health: A Conversation with Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD

In-person event open to Penn affiliates.

LDI Fellows Workshop: Using Large Language Models (LLMs) for Health Services Research, Part 2

Monday, December 8, 2025
9:00–11:00 a.m. ET

In-person event open to LDI Fellows.

 EVENT VIDEO RECAP

Value-Based Payment: Time to Replace or Reform?

More than 800 registrants from the health care community, government, and policymaking joined our panel of experts to explore the pros and cons of value-based payment models.

IN THE MEDIA

“You Can Still Start the ‘Great Lock In’ To Achieve Health Goals by the End of the Year.” Katherine Milkman. CNN

“East Market Street Methadone Clinic Is Closing in Building Owned by Comcast and the 76ers.” Shoshana Aronowitz. Philadelphia Inquirer

“Work on Critical Illnesses Halted After Health Department Research Arm Whittles Staff.” David Mandell. Politico

“Reimagining Menopause.” Arina Chesnokova. WHYY

“Improving Care for Life-Threatening Blood Clots.” Jay Giri. Medical Xpress

PUBLICATIONS

“The Effects of a Smoking Cessation Intervention on Mortality After a 32.5-Year Follow-Up Period: A Randomized Clinical Trial.” Jeffrey Zhang, John Connett, Dylan Small. American Journal of Epidemiology

“Remote, Automated Gamification and Community-Based Physical Activity in Parkinson Disease.” Kimberly J. Waddell, S. Ryan Greysen, Mitesh S. Patel, Madison S. Smith, Abby Yuen Tsz Lau, Sharon X. Xie, Stephanie Wood, James F. Morley. JAMA Neurology

“‘What You’re Hearing From All of Us Is Simplify the Language:’ Patient Perspectives on Biomarker Testing in Ovarian Cancer.” Anna Jo Smith, Rashmi Acharya, Lee Ang, Tracy Moore, Sarah DeFeo, Caroline S. O’Brien, Emily M. Ko. Gynecologic Oncology

“Variability in Use of Intravenous Adjuncts for Cesarean Delivery Under Neuraxial Anesthesia.” Grace Lim, Jill M. Mhyre, Mark D. Neuman. Anesthesiology

“Training a Smoking Status Probabilistic Model Using Cotinine Levels in a Large Claims Database.” Dominique Medaglio, Charles E. Leonard, Alisa J. Stephens Shields, Robert A. Schnoll, Robert Gross. Nicotine and Tobacco Research

Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics is a national leader in advancing health policy through transformative research.