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The COVID-19 pandemic has made the relationship among research, policy, and public health strikingly clear. People who may have given little thought to health policy and research began following the latest study results to guide their own behavior and push governments and businesses to make decisions that reflect a combination of science and their own values and risk tolerance.

Health journals like Health Affairs responded by accelerating editorial processes and publishing free content to meet growing consumer demand. The new environment affected health services researchers as well as placed a new emphasis on timeliness and attention to issues affecting the public.

In this context, George Wehby from the University of Iowa College of Public Health joins Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil for a new A Health Podyssey Excursion.

Wehby co-authored the most read Health Affairs article in 2020. In that paper, Wehby and coauthor Wei Lyu showed the value of state-level mask mandates in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

More recently in January 2022, Wehby and colleagues published two more papers in Health Affairs, one related to children's educational attainment and the other on racial and ethnic disparities in dental service use among lower income adults receiving Medicaid.

Join Alan Weil and George Wehby as they discuss these topics and how health services research has changed in recent years.

If you enjoy this interview, order the January 2022 Health Affairs issue.

Pre-order the February 2022 Racism and Health issue.

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