Doc Gurley's Urban Health Beat

Doc Gurley dives into spamming for a good cause: to improve public health. Here's what she learned.

The issue of homeless people drinking themselves to death on a sidewalk is one that unites and divides communities in unpredictable ways. Could a "wet house" be the answer in your city?

As patient satisfaction surveys become more important to how doctors get paid, Doc Gurley finds them to be easily gamed and lacking in statistical validity — creating problems for both doctors and their patients.

Who wants to take care of a patient who is statistically likely to rate you poorly when your payment for services is based on that same rating? Doc Gurley examines the role of race and racism in patient satisfaction ratings.

How did we get to the point where we actually pay popular doctors more for our health care? No such system exists in any other professional or non-professional field. You can’t even pay your plumber less if she has a lower customer satisfaction score.

There’s a growing recognition of the role that complex post-traumatic stress disorder plays in trapping people in long-term homelessness. Understanding how PTSD unfolds can help us better understand the homeless and their health issues.

It may be hard to connect well-paid and well-conditioned pro football players with the homeless guy elbow-deep in the trashcan on your sidewalk. But when it comes to brain injuries, they have more in common than you might think.