Research Library

Tele-health in schools may be the answer to limited resources and a need to increase health care access for children.

The Baker Institute Science and Technology Policy Program and the Health Policy Forum are hosting two competitions to inspire students to become advocates and take action against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Click here for details about how to enter.

Advancements in technology have increased access to health information and self-monitoring for individual consumers, as well as increased health care providers’ ability to diagnose, monitor or treat their patients remotely. This summary provides a snapshot of the scope of health-related technology available on the market and may provide insight into the current needs or demands of patients and providers.

As the implementation of Mexico’s historic energy reform gets underway, the debate has tended to overlook a key question at the intersection of technology and the new legislation: How can Mexico create an institutional framework supported by policies, laws and organizations to facilitate technology transfers and foster local innovation? Simply put, how will international oil companies transfer technology to Mexican companies and research facilities?

Peter Hotez, fellow in disease and poverty, testified about the continuing threat of neglected tropical diseases before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations.

On Feb. 24, 2015, public finance fellow John Diamond testified on tax reform before U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

Mexico Center director Tony Payan testified about U.S.-Mexico relations before the Committee on International Trade and Intergovernmental Affairs.

We explain a great change in the distribution of income by increased automation, which has directly replaced human labor in tasks that can be reduced to algorithms.

The international Human Microbiome Project trumpeted the coming of age of the field of metagenomics, the study of entire communities of microbes and their contributions to health and disease. In parallel, the field of metabolomics emerged as the systematic, nonbiased analysis of all low-molecular-weight small molecules, or metabolites, produced by a system in response to an environmental stimulus. These fields have enabled discoveries pertinent to a number of human conditions — namely, acute gastroenteritis, antibiotic-associated diarrhea, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, liver disease, undernutrition and obesity — and have begun to shed new light on multiple aspects of the neglected tropical diseases.

In 1972, a National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, comprising establishment figures chosen mostly by President Richard Nixon himself, issued a report that declared that “neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety” and recommended that Congress and state legislatures decriminalize the use and casual distribution of marijuana and seek means other than prohibition to discourage use. President Nixon ignored the report and Congress declined to consider its recommendations, but during the 40-plus years since its publication, at least 37 states have acted to refashion a crazy-quilt collection of prohibitions, nearly always in the direction favored by the commission. The specifics vary by state, but most reform legislation has followed one of three formulas: decriminalization of marijuana possession, legalization of marijuana for medical use, or legalization of marijuana for adult recreational use. In this issue brief, authors Katharine Neill and William Martin examine the facts and fears surrounding each of these options.