Future Scenarios for Mental Health in the UK Armed Forces Community
RAND Europe, commissioned by Combat Stress and funded by the Forces in Mind Trust, delivered a scenario‑planning study outlining five possible futures for UK Armed Forces mental health through 2045. The research highlights rising societal demand for mental‑health support, especially among youth, alongside climate, political and economic pressures. Within the military, geopolitical uncertainty and potential large‑scale conflicts could intensify operational stressors for personnel and families. Transformations in care delivery—structural reforms and digital technologies—will further shape service provision.
State Paid Sick Leave Mandates and Receipt of Pediatric Preventive Dental Care
A new study examined how state‑level paid sick‑leave mandates affect children’s preventive dental visits. Using National Survey of Children’s Health data from 2016‑2023 and a difference‑in‑differences design, researchers compared states that adopted mandates with those that did not. The analysis...
Workforce and Staffing at 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Centers
A cross‑sectional survey of 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline centers revealed widespread staffing shortfalls. Seventy‑one percent of the 159 responding centers reported being understaffed, and 89% cited difficulty securing funding for new hires. Centers that offered remote work faced higher...
Key Changes in U.S. and Chinese Military Capabilities, 2017–2024
RAND’s new expert‑insights paper charts the evolution of U.S. and Chinese military capabilities from 2017 through 2024, highlighting divergent budget trends, force structures, and technology investments. China’s defense spending accelerated at roughly 7% a year, funding a rapid expansion of...
Exploring Participant Perspectives on Implementation and Sustainment of Taking It to the Pews
A recent RAND‑posted study examined participant views on "Taking It to the Pews" (TIPS), a faith‑based HIV education and testing program delivered in 14 African American churches in Kansas City. Focus groups revealed that pastor involvement and easy‑to‑understand materials boosted...
Enhancing Recruitment in Urinary Incontinence Care
Urinary incontinence affects over 50% of adult women yet remains underdiagnosed in primary care. A multi‑site study of five grantees examined recruitment tactics across 1,950 practices and 134,852 screened patients. Findings show that leadership buy‑in, practice‑facilitator involvement, and embedding UI...
A Sliding Scale AdaptiVe Expedited Rescue Algorithm for Deceased Donor Kidney Transplantation
Researchers introduced a Sliding Scale AdaptiVe Expedited rescue algorithm to curb the rising nonuse of deceased‑donor kidneys. The model ties a rescue trigger to real‑time nonuse rates and allocates kidneys in proportionate batches, shortening cold‑ischemic time. Simulations using KSIM 2.0 and...
Managing Urinary Incontinence
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Managing Urinary Incontinence (MUI) Initiative examined how practice facilitators supported evidence‑based, nonsurgical UI care across five U.S. institutions and 270 primary‑care practices over two years. Interviews revealed five themes, including evolving facilitator roles,...
Innovation De-Implementation in Emergency Departments During the COVID-19 Pandemic
A qualitative study of emergency department clinicians across eight U.S. hospitals examined why COVID‑19 care innovations were discontinued. Focus groups revealed that direct observation of patient outcomes, peer discussion, supply constraints, and leadership protocols were pivotal in de‑implementation decisions. Factors...
Decadal Predictions of Future Habitat Favourability of the European Green Crab (Carcinus Maenas) on the Pacific Coast of North America
The RAND study applies Bayesian Additive Regression Trees and the latest IPCC climate projections to forecast European green crab habitat suitability on North America’s Pacific coast by decade. Under all but the lowest‑emission scenario, suitable conditions extend to Alaska’s Seward...
Effect of Plain Cigarette Packaging on Point-of-Sale Purchasing Behavior Among Young Adults Who Smoke
A RAND StoreLab experiment with 433 young adult smokers tested full plain packaging, half plain packaging, and standard branding. Full‑coverage plain packs cut cigarette purchases by 46% compared with the status‑quo (adjusted OR 0.54, p = .04). Half‑coverage packs showed no impact on...
Qualitative Findings on the Benefits of Depression Treatment for Pregnant Women Living with HIV in Uganda
A qualitative sub‑study of the M‑DEPTH cluster trial in Uganda interviewed 25 pregnant women living with HIV who received either antidepressant therapy or problem‑solving therapy. Nearly all participants (23 of 25) reported relief from depressive symptoms, better adherence to antiretroviral...
Insurance Coverage and Provision of Opioid Disorder Treatment
Older‑adult opioid overdose deaths have surged, prompting policy action. In 2020 Medicare began covering methadone, the first FDA‑approved medication for opioid use disorder available only through opioid treatment programs. Using a difference‑in‑differences design, researchers found that OTPs quickly expanded Medicare...
How to Forecast China’s Lithography Leap
The RAND report compares the Delphi method with crowdsourced forecasting to predict whether China will secure deep‑ultraviolet and extreme‑ultraviolet lithography machines by 2026 and 2030. The Delphi workshop outperformed the crowd by 12% on the 2026 question, citing the short...
Optimizing Defense Requirements Cooperation Among the United States and Its Allies
Amid rising strategic competition in the Indo‑Pacific and Russia’s war in Ukraine, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia are overhauling their defense requirements and acquisition processes. The U.S. President ordered acquisition reform and the Pentagon announced the disestablishment...
Reading Full Books in Secondary English Language Arts Classrooms
A spring 2025 American Instructional Resources Survey of K‑12 teachers shows most secondary English teachers assign at least one full book during the 2024‑25 school year, but full‑book reading remains peripheral. Nine percent assign none, and roughly two‑thirds assign only...
Build Partner Airpower, Not Air Forces
The U.S. Air Force announced plans to cut two aviation security force assistance (AvSFA) squadrons that train foreign partners in Latin America and Africa. A new paper reviews U.S. experience building partner air forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, identifying three...
Force Multipliers in the Americas
The RAND report "Force Multipliers in the Americas" argues that security force assistance (SFA) can be leveraged to protect the U.S. homeland and advance strategic objectives in Latin America. The 2025 National Security Strategy flags the region as a serious...
Contingency Frameworks for Future U.S.-China Cooperation on AI Assurance and Security
RAND’s latest expert‑insights paper proposes a contingency framework for future U.S.–China cooperation on AI assurance and security. While current geopolitical rivalry makes bilateral AI projects unlikely, the analysis outlines five strategic lines of effort that could enable stable, predictable collaboration...
Open-Weight AI Models Require Proportional Evaluation Approaches
Open‑weight AI models (OWMs) are emerging with publicly accessible parameters, creating risk profiles that traditional closed‑weight evaluation methods overlook. Researchers Paskov, Rodriguez, Dev, and Casper propose a proportional evaluation (PE) framework comprising four criteria to address these gaps. Their systematic...
State Tele-Buprenorphine Prescribing Policies by Medical Professional Type
A RAND‑led legal mapping of all 50 states and D.C. reveals stark differences in Medicaid policies governing fully virtual buprenorphine prescribing for opioid use disorder. While 32 states permit physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants to prescribe via telemedicine, 12...
Multi-Ecosystem Competition in Artificial Intelligence Adoption and Diffusion
The RAND working paper by Jessie Wang introduces a theoretical framework that maps how multiple artificial‑intelligence ecosystems—ranging from big‑tech platforms to open‑source collectives—compete for market share as AI diffuses across sectors. It highlights heterogeneous value propositions, such as data access,...
Contextual Determinants of the Implementation of a Mental Health Diversion Policy in California
In 2018 California enacted Assembly Bill 1810, establishing a pre‑trial diversion pathway for defendants with mental health disorders. Implementation is delegated to counties, which have discretion over infrastructure, oversight, and procedural details. A RAND‑sponsored qualitative study interviewed 29 partners across...
Pediatric Dental Surgeries in Children with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism Paid by Means of Medicaid
The study examined Medicaid claims from 2016‑2020 across 40 states, covering 601,286 outpatient dental surgeries for children ages 1‑18 with intellectual disabilities and related conditions (IDRC) and autism. Regression‑adjusted analysis showed that children with IDRC were 14 percentage points less...
Health Care Access and Quality for New York Veterans Provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Community Care
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is proposing to broaden eligibility for its Community Care program, allowing more New York veterans to receive VA‑funded treatment from private providers when VA facilities fall short on access or quality. Currently, only 47%...
Health Care Access and Quality for New York Veterans Provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Community Care
RAND released Volume II of its study on health‑care access and quality for New York veterans under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Community Care program. The supplement details the research methods, data sources, and analytic techniques used to evaluate...
Health Care Access and Quality for New York Veterans
Around 315,000 New York veterans are enrolled in VA health benefits, but geographic access is limited—only 47% live within a 30‑minute drive of a VA facility and 54% are beyond that range for mental‑health services. The VA Community Care Network (CCN)...
How Much More Power Can the U.S. Grid Provide for AI?
A RAND analysis projects the U.S. electricity grid will deliver roughly 82 GW of net available capacity by 2030, split between 33 GW of front‑of‑the‑meter (FTM) resources and 49 GW of behind‑the‑meter (BTM) assets that shave peak demand. Most of the FTM growth...
Exploring Instability Risks in the U.S.-China AI Rivalry
The United States and China are accelerating a strategic contest to dominate artificial intelligence, raising concerns that either side could resort to cyber attacks or kinetic force to impede the other's progress toward artificial general intelligence. RAND’s research team has...
Evaluating Large Language Models' Abilities to Process and Understand Technical Policy Reports
Researchers have introduced a specialized benchmark to assess large language models’ ability to process technical policy reports. The benchmark uses a human‑AI hybrid workflow to create a claim‑based dataset and evaluates truthfulness across six categories rather than a simple true/false...
The AGI Rideout Strategy for Reducing Strategic Risk and Promoting Stability in the Transition to Artificial General Intelligence
The authors warn that an unchecked race to artificial general intelligence (AGI) could give the first nation to achieve it a decisive, lasting strategic edge, heightening U.S. national‑security risks. Drawing lessons from Cold‑War nuclear stability, they propose an "AGI Rideout"...
Integrating Forecasting with Gaming
A RAND paper proposes an interoperability framework that blends structured probabilistic forecasting with tabletop gaming and scenario‑based exercises used by U.S. defense and national‑security agencies. The authors argue that linking the narrative strengths of wargaming to the empirical rigor of...
Disruptions in Medicare Advantage Coverage in 2026
A new study reveals that forced disenrollment from Medicare Advantage (MA) plans will spike to about 10% in 2026, affecting roughly 2.9 million beneficiaries nationwide. In Vermont, 92% of MA enrollees are already facing plan exits, the highest state concentration. The...
Realizing the Promise of the Drone Revolution
The Department of War (DoDW) is eyeing a drone‑centric warfare model that leverages cheap, attritable unmanned systems to counter numerically superior foes. Technological advances since the early 2010s have driven down costs, enabling large swarms that can perform mission‑critical tasks....
China Plans for 'Total War'
Since at least 2021, the Chinese Communist Party has institutionalized a “total war” doctrine that fuses civilian institutions with military capability through an Integrated National Strategic System and Capabilities (INSS&C). The concept, aimed at defeating the United States as the...
Evaluation of Depot Buprenorphine Provision in Treatment and Recovery Services in England
Depot buprenorphine (DB), a long‑acting injectable opioid substitution therapy, expanded in England under the Supplemental Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery Grant. By 2024 DB accounted for about 6.9 % of opioid substitution treatments, with uptake fastest in areas that received early...
The Barriers and Facilitators to Supporting, Commissioning and Working with Lived Experience Recovery Organisations in Systems of Care in England
The RAND Europe study reveals that lived‑experience recovery organisations (LEROs) remain under‑utilised in England, with only about one‑third of local areas recognising a LERO despite policy emphasis on peer‑led support. LEROs provide direct assistance to people using alcohol or drugs,...
Factors that Influence Employees' Perceptions and Experiences of Working Within the Treatment and Recovery Sector in England
A new study evaluating England’s Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Recovery Workforce Transformation Programme finds that staff remain highly engaged and committed despite the sector’s demanding nature. The three‑year drug‑strategy funding has bolstered job resources, improving employee experience in many...
Integrated Care for People Who Use Alcohol And/Or Other Drugs
The UK’s Supplementary Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery Grant (SSMTRG) is showing early signs of reshaping how alcohol and drug services coordinate with broader health care. A mixed‑methods study of ten sites uncovered five distinct integration models, from single‑point access...
Implementation of the Treatment and Recovery Portfolio of the 'From Harm to Hope' Drug Strategy in England
The UK government’s ‘From Harm to Hope’ Treatment and Recovery Portfolio injected ring‑fenced funding into a drug‑treatment sector that had suffered years of disinvestment. Over the first three years the portfolio was largely delivered as planned, though long‑term funding uncertainty...
D-SITAR Methods Report
RAND Europe, together with leading academic and health partners, released a methods report detailing the evaluation framework for the UK Government’s 10‑year D‑SITAR drug‑strategy investment. Funded by a National Institute of Health and Care Research grant, the project examines the...
Implementation and Early Impacts of the Housing Support Grant in England
The UK government allocated roughly $67 million over three years to launch the Housing Support Grant (HSG) pilot in England, targeting people who use alcohol or drugs. Twenty‑eight local authorities delivered intensive, person‑centred housing assistance, combining financial aid and dedicated support...
Simpler Is Better for Autograders
Researchers at RAND released a report showing that simple, single‑rubric autograders dramatically reduce evaluation error for open‑ended LLM tasks. Across four expert‑graded benchmarks and five models, the single‑rubric approach cut normalized mean absolute error by 9 to 25 percentage points,...
Chinese Academy of Sciences Directory
RAND Europe has released the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Directory, a free, evidence‑based tool that profiles 50 CAS research institutes and evaluates their potential involvement in Chinese defence programmes across six indicators. The directory is designed to aid government,...
Fiscal Year 2025 Assessment of the Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project
The 2025 congressional assessment of the Department of Defense’s Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project (AcqDemo) finds the program largely meets the 14 criteria set by the National Defense Authorization Act. Flexibilities such as simplified classifications, broadband pay scales, direct‑hire...
Potential Spillover Effects on Diagnostic Delay for Cancer During the NHS-Galleri Trial
A quasi‑experimental study examined whether England’s NHS‑Galleri trial, which tests a cell‑free DNA multi‑cancer early detection (MCED) assay, caused spillover effects on cancer diagnostic timelines. Using a difference‑in‑differences design across 21 cancer‑alliance regions, researchers found that participating regions experienced a...
Using a Quality Improvement Priority Metric to Promote Uniformly High-Quality Care
Researchers introduced a new quality‑improvement priority metric that merges case‑mix‑adjusted patient‑experience scores with their correlation to overall hospital ratings. Applied to Child HCAHPS data, the metric flagged two system‑wide improvement areas and uncovered additional gaps among racial, ethnic, and language...
Dental Surgeries in Hospitals and Surgery Centers for Children With Developmental Disabilities
A cross‑sectional Medicaid analysis of 17,552 outpatient dental surgeries for children with autism or intellectual‑developmental disabilities compared ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) with hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs). The study found that ASC‑based procedures were scheduled 8.7 days sooner for autism and 13.2 days...
The Patient Experience Divide
A recent national survey of 5,016 adults examined how income influences primary‑care experiences using the CG‑CAHPS questionnaire and narrative comments. Low‑income respondents reported 3‑5 points lower scores across all composite measures and were significantly less likely to make positive remarks...
A Formal Model of How Artificial Intelligence Erodes Human Agency
Researchers Alvin Moon and Benjamin Boudreaux present a formal model that quantifies how artificial intelligence erodes collective human agency. Using social‑choice theory, they introduce three metrics—distribution of decisive coalitions, minimal coalition size, and composition of minimal coalitions—to track shifts in...