Troubled Health Care System

Research Projects – Health

Overview–Over the past few years, the SOA's Health Benefit Systems Practice Area has identified "the troubled healthcare system with rising costs" as one of its key issues. To that end, the practice area initiated a research project, cosponsored by the Health Section, to help provide strategic direction for the future involvement of actuaries in the current U.S. health care reform debate.

As part of this effort, a literature review of the current state of research on various aspects of the health care system in the U.S. was undertaken. The literature review was subdivided into nine health-related topics.

The following research team at Indiana University was engaged to conduct the literature review:

Frank Vilardo, Ph.D., Project Director
Grant Hemphill, FSA, MPA, Principal Reviewer
Autumn Workman, MPH, MT (ASCP), Principal Reviewer

Complete results of the literature review are now available. An overall summary of the literature review, as well as specific review topics, can be accessed on this page.

For each of the topics, an annotated bibliography of approximately 25–35 articles was created as well as a summary on the key findings of the current state of research on each topic.