Author Archives: Brendan Saloner

About Brendan Saloner

I am a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program. I completed a PhD in health policy at Harvard in 2012. My current research focuses on children's health, public programs, racial/ethnic disparities, and mental health. I am also interested in justice and health care.

Learning About Inequality Increases Concern, But Not Necessarily Support for Redistribution

A puzzle: income inequality between the top 1% and the rest has surged in the last few years, yet support for redistribution among the general public has actually declined (see figure below). Do people not care about inequality, or do … Continue reading

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Social Factors and the Evaluation of Mental Disorders

The American Psychiatric Association is set to release the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) this month. These new guidelines will have a profound effect on how clinicians diagnose mental disorders, how health insurers … Continue reading

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Immigration reform without public benefits

Any viable immigration reform proposal in the United States senate has to pass through Florida Republican Marcio Rubio. That’s why it was big news when Rubio announced his support for a bipartisan plan on the Sunday news shows, stressing that … Continue reading

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Boston is Resilient

Bloodshed and mayhem on the streets of any city is tragic, but Boston is particularly disturbing to me. I spent many pleasant spring afternoons wandering the shops around Copley Square and, on one occasion, I cheered on runners at the … Continue reading

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Ease off the alarm bells: New data on ADHD diagnosis rates

The New York Times has a cover story today reporting on the estimated prevalence of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder from the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health (they don’t identify the survey by name). The story is going to get a lot … Continue reading

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British and U.S. Inequality Over the Lifecourse: An Important New Report

Ben and I both attended the Social Change Harvard-Manchester Initiative (SCHMi) summer institute in 2010, a joint program between the University of Manchester and Harvard. A core group of SCHMi researchers just released a report, authored by Rourke O’Brien (also … Continue reading

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Don’t Hire Smokers?

Dueling perspective articles in this month’s New England Journal debate whether it is ethical for employers to refuse to hire smokers. Health care employers (including the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which is owned by my employer and the employer … Continue reading

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How did Kools become Black, and Marlboros White?

In 1971, a team of ethnographic researchers conducted focus groups with 24 African American young men in Chicago to explore the men’s sense of identity as well as their hopes and frustrations. The authors concluded that although the African American … Continue reading

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Is there life after work? The welfare state in a future without jobs

Peter Frase argues that liberals are wrong to focus on universal employment: “Forget job creation, we need to do more job killing. Cutting the military budget, reining in the financial sector, and dismantling the prison-industrial complex will destroy many jobs. … Continue reading

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Solving the High School Graduation Puzzle

Going back at least as far as the landmark 1966 Coleman Report, social scientists and policymakers have debated how much educational achievement gaps reflect the influence of families and social norms on the one hand, and differences in the quality … Continue reading

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