Building a Digital Republic to Reduce Health Disparities and Improve Population Health in the United States Article Swipe

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Peter Muennig , Roman Pabayo , Émilie Courtin ·

YOU? · · 2023 · Open Access · · DOI: https://doi.org/10.32388/9smv1e.7

Income, schooling, and healthcare are key ingredients for health, but most government programs that are designed to provide these social benefits are difficult to access, target those least in need, and carry enormous administrative costs. Benefits such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or Medicaid are difficult to enroll in, so only those who have the cognitive capacity to navigate the application process receive those benefits. The bureaucracies of welfare programs also increase the cost of administering the program. Redundancies in welfare programs also mean that there are redundant bureaucracies. In this commentary, we discuss a novel method for improving health while also improving privacy, reducing fraud, and improving data system compatibility. Specifically, we propose a digital identity credential that allows for the creation of a “digital republic” in which enrollment in social benefits can be automated, and the benefits can be targeted to those most in need. While there are large potential population health and health disparities benefits that could arise from a digital republic, more empirical work is needed to understand the extent to which nations have benefited from digital identity programs in the past and the political economy associated with implementing such programs.

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Population Health equity Health care Business Medicaid Welfare Government (linguistics) Public economics Economic growth Public relations Political science Economics Medicine Environmental health Philosophy Law Linguistics

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Type: preprint
Language: en
Landing Page: https://doi.org/10.32388/9smv1e.7
PDF: https://www.qeios.com/read/9SMV1E.7/pdf
OA Status: diamond
Cited By: 1
References: 26
Related Works: 10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.32388/9smv1e.7

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Title: Building a Digital Republic to Reduce Health Disparities and Improve Population Health in the United States

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Type: preprint

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Language: en

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Publication year: 2023

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Publication date: 2023-03-21

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Authors: Peter Muennig, Roman Pabayo, Émilie Courtin

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Landing page: https://doi.org/10.32388/9smv1e.7

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Concepts: Population, Health equity, Health care, Business, Medicaid, Welfare, Government (linguistics), Public economics, Economic growth, Public relations, Political science, Economics, Medicine, Environmental health, Philosophy, Law, Linguistics

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Cited by: 1

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abstract_inverted_index.republic,	165
abstract_inverted_index.Assistance	39
abstract_inverted_index.associated	191
abstract_inverted_index.automated,	136
abstract_inverted_index.credential	118
abstract_inverted_index.enrollment	130
abstract_inverted_index.government	11
abstract_inverted_index.healthcare	3
abstract_inverted_index.population	153
abstract_inverted_index.schooling,	1
abstract_inverted_index.understand	172
abstract_inverted_index.“digital	126
abstract_inverted_index.application	61
abstract_inverted_index.commentary,	92
abstract_inverted_index.disparities	157
abstract_inverted_index.ingredients	6
abstract_inverted_index.republic”	127
abstract_inverted_index.Redundancies	79
abstract_inverted_index.implementing	193
abstract_inverted_index.Specifically,	112
abstract_inverted_index.administering	76
abstract_inverted_index.bureaucracies	67
abstract_inverted_index.administrative	33
abstract_inverted_index.bureaucracies.	89
abstract_inverted_index.compatibility.	111
cited_by_percentile_year.max	95
cited_by_percentile_year.min	91
countries_distinct_count	3
institutions_distinct_count	3
citation_normalized_percentile.value	0.54935943
citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_1_percent	False
citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent	False