One way AcademyHealth works to improve both the supply and quality of health services research is by assessing the skills and composition of the HSR workforce, and building programs that respond to emerging needs. This section includes evidence on the makeup of the HSR workforce as well as programs to improve and support its diversity and relevance.
Coming from Canada, Laura Yudo expected to hear that a single-payer system was the fix for U.S. health care's biggest problems. Instead, conversations with scholars from France, Ghana, Rwanda, Nepal, and beyond convinced her that no country has it all figured out, and that the real value lies in learning from each other's trade-offs.
In this reflection for Work Interrupted: Voices from the Field, Hannah Scott writes about losing her mother during graduate school and, just as life began to feel possible again, losing her job. What follows is an honest account of grief, disruption, and the ongoing process of rebuilding when the ground shifts more than once.
Global health conversations usually ask what developing countries can learn from wealthier ones. But decades of doing more with less have made many resource-constrained health systems quiet innovators—offering lessons in workforce strategy, data use, and research-to-practice speed that developed systems are only now catching up to. The author has made this post available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese; all three versions appear below.
Professional Development Council panelists share insights from 2026 ARM Session, emphasizing leadership as a practice, offering perspectives on five types of leadership challenges, and describing attributes and skills that leaders can use to manage through uncertainty and instability, and create adaptable, resilient teams.
In this final installment of our three-part series, IRL alumni reflect on emerging opportunities and what will be needed to ensure that community-engaged research (CER) continues to thrive in the years ahead.
In Work Interrupted: Voices from the Field, Dr. Debra Houry reflects on what happens when the work that defines you is suddenly upended. For many in health care and public health, work is inseparable from identity, so when it’s disrupted, the loss extends far beyond a title,
The communities most impacted by health policy are too often excluded from shaping it. Meanwhile, community-informed research is producing powerful evidence that rarely reaches the policy and legal spaces where decisions are made. Closing that gap is both an urgent challenge and one of the most important opportunities for advancing health equity today.
As health care systems across the United States face staffing shortages, burnout, and growing demand for care, workforce issues have become increasingly important to the future of health care. The 2026 ARM will feature workforce-focused sessions examining how working conditions affect both health care workers and the quality of care patients receive.
Health services research (HSR) shapes decisions that affect care, policy, and communities every day, yet the field is often invisible to those outside of it. HSR Week is a new AcademyHealth initiative created to celebrate the people behind this work and help make the impact of HSR easier to see and understand.
Health services research (HSR) helps ensure that health care works better in the real world, closing the gap between what we know and what people experience. This one-pager explains how HSR identifies what works, improves care delivery, and supports smarter decisions across the health system.
