{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Pacific Time: West Coast What-Ifs","title":"What if West Coast Healthcare Got Focused?","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2763,"description":"What if we let the data guide West Coast healthcare? Could we better address our mental health and addiction crisis? In this episode, data scientist Abie Flaxman breaks down the top health issues for working-age adults on the West Coast—and why our health systems keep missing the mark.\n\nYou might think cancer or heart disease top the charts. But in Washington, Oregon, and California, the leading killers of working-age adults are drug overdose and suicide. In this revealing episode, Greg Amrofell talks with Dr. Abie Flaxman—one of the architects of the Global Burden of Disease—about what’s really harming West Coast health. From despair-driven deaths to broken public health infrastructure, the episode explores what data reveals, what state leaders can do, and why we can’t count on federal help. It's not just a health crisis. It's a crisis of policy, prevention, and purpose.\n\nHighlights\n\nWhy drug overdoses and suicides top the charts for working-age West Coasters\nHow public health data from IHME can guide smarter state policies\nThe hidden burden of Alzheimer's in Washington and California\nWhy the Affordable Care Act mattered—and why it wasn't enough\nHow state-level healthcare experiments can lead national reform\nWhat happens when the federal government guts public health budgets\nWhy universities may need to take matters into their own hands to defend science\nGuest Bio:\n​Dr. Abraham D. Flaxman is an Associate Professor of Global Health and Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). He specializes in developing computational methods to measure health metrics and evaluate health interventions. Dr. Flaxman earned his BS in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his PhD in Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization from Carnegie Mellon University. \n\nResources & References:\nGlobal Burden of Disease (GBD)\nGBD Compare | Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation\nGBD US County Level...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/RiJTUotxJlYklbKzDgyTqwzVKHgRkNcPUSmnYW5aI_8/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8wMGJh/ZTI4OTU4ODAzN2I4/NjRmNjBjNDJlY2I3/MmI5Yy5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}