EurekAlert! News by Subject: Medicine & Health - News by Subject: Medicine & Health

Medicine & Health

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 18-Jan-2026 18:11 ET (18-Jan-2026 23:11 GMT/UTC)

Hospital price markup and outcomes of major elective operations

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: This cross-sectional study found that considerable variation in price markup exists across hospitals and that high-markup hospitals demonstrated both lower quality and value of care. These findings underscore that high-markup hospitals represent a key initial target for national policy efforts targeting pricing regulation, transparency, and quality improvement.

Journal: JAMA Surgery

Insurance dynamics during childhood in the fragmented US health system

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: An estimated 3 of 4 U.S. children relied on publicly subsidized insurance (Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program [CHIP], or Marketplace) or experienced a period without any insurance by their 18th birthday in the post-Affordable Care Act (ACA), pre-pandemic policy environment. Substantial state heterogeneity in childhood un-insurance underscores the critical role of Medicaid policies.

Journal: JAMA

Researchers at the Josep Carreras Institute describe for the first time the delicate balance of longevity

Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team of researchers led by Dr Manel Esteller, head of the Cancer Epigenetics Group at the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, has just published the most comprehensive analysis to date of the longest-lived person ever recorded, the Catalan woman Maria Branyas, who passed away at the end of 2024 at the age of 117. The peer-reviewed study, published in the prestigious international journal Cell Reports Medicine, concludes that the biology of supercentenarians is more complex than previously thought, and that the key may lie in a delicate balance between opposing forces.

Journal: Cell Reports Medicine

Majority of US children enroll in Medicaid, many face coverage gaps by age 18

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Peer-Reviewed Publication

By age 18, three in five U.S. children have enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and two in five have experienced a period of being uninsured, according to a microsimulation model developed by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study, the first to estimate cumulative insurance experience over the full course of childhood, highlights the broad reach of Medicaid and CHIP, programs that have recently undergone significant policy changes.

Journal: JAMA

“High-markup” hospitals are overwhelmingly for-profit, located in large metropolitan areas and have the worst patient outcomes

University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Hospitals with the widest difference between the cost of their services and what they charge patients and their insurance carriers are mostly for-profit, investor owned and located in large metropolitan areas. They also have significantly worse patient outcomes compared with lower-cost hospitals.

Journal: JAMA Surgery

Zebrafish models offer fast and effective guidance for personalized therapies for kids with high-risk cancer

Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research reveals that a small tropical fish can help guide personalized medicine and tailored therapies for some of the most challenging, high-risk pediatric cancer cases. Molecular profiling has transformed cancer care, but 30% of high-risk pediatric cancers do not have actionable therapeutic targets, limiting personalized treatment options and negatively affecting survival outcomes

Journal: Cancer Research Communications
Funder: Cancer Institute, National Health and Medical Research Council, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Foundation, CHAMO

Lack of resources in neighborhoods linked to higher chance of certain mental illnesses

University of Georgia
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Living in a resource-deprived area may increase your risk of certain psychiatric conditions, according to a recent study from the University of Georgia.

Journal: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology