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Public health agencies typically tell people what to do and what not to do, but they don’t regularly explain why — or why people might hear something different from others. They also often fail to prioritize. In the end, advice for a range of topics is delivered with the same level of confidence and, seemingly, the same level of urgency. The problem is that when people find one piece of guidance is overstated, they may begin to distrust everything. (Emily Oster, 11/13)

Several years ago, teams of scholars published groundbreaking research that pointed to racial biases in algorithms that helped direct patient care at major health systems in the U.S. Those algorithms, the studies found, adversely affected the care of Black and Latinx patients across multiple medical categories. For instance, the researchers uncovered racial biases in the prediction algorithms used by to identify more medically complex patients, such that Black patients were far less likely to qualify for additional care than their white counterparts. (Amber Nigam, 11/13)

In my work as director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, I know that we still lack sufficient understanding of how these modern, highly potent and concentrated forms of cannabis affect our health. (Yasmin Hurd, 11/12)

There is information to impart and just as importantly, misinformation to combat. There are the drugs, services, routine testing and medical devices that hospitals, insurers and companies offer, all with an eye toward improving people’s health and organizations’ results. It is a business, after all. (Mary Ellen Podmolik, 11/11)

I have never seen a guest show up to a potluck dinner in the service dress of a vice admiral. And until last month, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy had never worn his uniform to one. But there he was in a plush Washington neighborhood near Rock Creek Park, attending a potluck in his official capacity as the nation’s chief medical officer, to start the next phase of his continuing public campaign against social isolation. (Julia Moskin, 11/12)