Pardee RAND Graduate School students participate in many RAND research projects through their On-the-Job Training. These projects provide students with tremendous opportunities to publish their work in RAND reports and peer-reviewed journals. In fact, many of our students develop an impressive publications record during their tenure at Pardee RAND, which enables them to compete successfully for positions at universities and other research institutions.
Below is a list of publications that our students have recently authored or co-authored. The list provides an excellent illustration of the range of publications that our students have had a hand in developing.
This research brief summarizes the findings of a report on Los Angeles County's Housing for Health program and its effects on county costs and on the physical and mental health of people experiencing homelessness.
RAND researchers' model of the child welfare system shows that increasing prevention while also increasing treatment improves system experience and long-term outcomes while paying for itself by reducing lifetime child welfare system costs.
To analyze the effects of prevention and treatment programs on child welfare outcomes, RAND researchers built a quantitative model simulating how children enter and flow through the nation's child welfare system. They then projected how different policy options (preventive services, family preservation treatment efforts, and kinship care treatment efforts) would affect a child's pathway through the system, costs, and early adulthood outcomes.
We observed differences among physician organizations (POs) in the efficiency with which they produce quality. The sources of inefficiency should be identified and these areas targeted for improvement.
Providing adequate support to PCPs and nurses may help reduce the stress they experience when coordinating care for high-risk patients.
As unmanned aerial vehicles rapidly evolve, regulators around the world are scrambling to keep up with new uses, capabilities, and technology. The United States has found itself scrambling to satisfy the regulatory relaxation requested by commercial drone companies. The author summarizes the rapidly changing body of commercial drone regulations worldwide and highlights the primary obstacles to delivery drone use in each country.
This report uses a review of organizational culture literature to help address the U.S. Army's organizational challenges, such as behavioral health treatment stigma, negative workplace behaviors, and participation of women in combat. Researchers identified key drivers of cultural change, and a group of subject matter experts analyzed the results of the literature review by identifying the most important drivers of cultural change for the Army.
Housing for Health (HFH), a division of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, provides supportive housing to patients with complex medical and behavioral issues who are experiencing homelessness. This report assesses HFH's structure and goals and its effects on service use and cost. Our findings suggest HFH has been successfully implemented. Hundreds have been stably housed, and we observed a net cost savings of 20 percent.
An updated comprehensive review of rigorous evaluations of early childhood programs confirms and strengthens RAND researchers' findings from previous syntheses showing that many early childhood programs can improve a range of outcomes for children.
This report examines evaluations of early childhood programs that meet criteria for scientific rigor and synthesizes their results to better understand program outcomes, costs, and benefits. It focuses on programs serving children or parents of children from the prenatal period to age 5. The programs reviewed use approaches alone or in combination that include early care and education, home visiting, parent education, and government transfers.
Drugs to halt the progression of Alzheimer's disease may be available by 2020, but millions of U.S. patients might have to wait more than 14 months for initial appointments in the multistep process unless health care system capacity is increased.
Promising early-stage trial results provide hope that a therapy for Alzheimer's disease may become available that can prevent progression to full-blown dementia. But an important challenge will arise: A substantial backlog of existing cases with early-stage disease would have to be screened, diagnosed, and then potentially treated. This report assesses the preparedness of the U.S. health care system to handle the potential caseload.
The U.S. Air Force has embarked on a new round of strategic planning under the auspices of its 2015 Strategic Master Plan (SMP). This report represents a general survey of the state of the art in strategy and planning. We found that basic concept and approach of the SMP has promise, but its emphasis on pre-set planning could obstruct, rather than facilitate, its objectives.
Book review of "Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions" by Richard Harris.
Up to 70% of homeless youth smoke, but there is little information available on their smoking cessation experiences and perceptions to guide cessation intervention efforts. This study examined reasons for quitting smoking, previous experiences quitting smoking, and preferences for smoking cessation programs among homeless young adults.
This assessment of governance approaches for academic medical centers (AMCs) helped the University of California respond to changes in the funding environment and provides a systematic way for any AMC to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of its governance approaches..
Since 2010, the RAND Corporation has worked with the Kurdistan Regional Government to develop initiatives to improve the region's health care system. The third phase of the project focused on development and use of a primary care management information system; health financing reform, with a focus on policy reform options to deal with physician dual practice; and hospital patient safety training within the context of health quality improvement.
This study suggests initial ideas for managing climate uncertainty in conservation planning. Differences with previous RDM applications include focus on finer scale geography and significantly more uncertainty in the system (species response) model.
RAND studied trends affecting public cord blood banks and considered changes to the program to buttress banks' financial stability. Researchers found a system worthy of investment, especially if it helps improve the quality of the national inventory.
We describe the existing public cord blood bank system, assess current trends and economic relationships of key stakeholders, and provide recommendations to improve the economic sustainability of the system. We propose changes to the federal program to buttress banks' financial stability. We found a system valuable to society and worthy of public investment, especially to improve the genetic diversity and quality of the national inventory.
