Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
A paper from Guadamuz et al. (2024) examines trends in pharmacy closures between 2010-2021. The authors use data from the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (to describe US retail pharmacies), National Center for Health Statistics (to describe population characteristics at the county level) and the American Community Survey (to describe populations at the ZIP…
Drug use and homicide rates. In 2024, ~10% of Anguilla’s GDP will come from fees for its .ai domain name. The cost of next generation sequencing for cancer patients. Chernew: Medicare at 60. Econ PhD job market is down. Egypt is malaria free!
That is a key question if long-run drug prices are going to come down for biologic products. We can decompose this question into 3 sub-questions: What share patients initiating therapy start on a biosimilar? What share of patients already using a biologic products switch to a biosimilar? Do patient of physician factors drive biosimilar prescribing…
Many studies have found that patients with lower socioeconomic status (SES) have worse access to care. For instance, patients from lower SES have longer wait times (see review papers Landi et al. 2018 and Siciliani 2016). One key question is whether these disparities depend on how socioeconomic status is measured: at the individual level or…
This is a question I can’t answer with certainty. Patients often believe that since I’m part of the health-care system, I would know. But I don’t, not as a doctor — and not even when I’m a patient myself. In the United States, health insurance is so extraordinarily complicated, with different insurers offering different plans,…
This is the subtitle of a study by Rebaudo et al. (2024) that aims to examine how different factors impact individual willingness to provide caregiving. The study is focused on potential caregivers in Germany. Before we get to the statistical analysis, first some background: Informal Caregiving in Germany The article provides a nice summary of…
UK medicines regulator needs more resources. Big money for biosimilars. Fixing liberalism. 2024 scientific breakthroughs. The Economist: Best books of 2024.
The answer is ‘yes’, but the question is in what manner? A paper by Che et al. (2024) examines the use of real-world data (RWD) across 2016-2023 HTA assessments. Over this time period, 11% of HTA submissions included real-world data. Further, they find that: The main sources of RWD considered in the submissions were disease…
That is the title of an interview with me in The Evidence Base out today with the subtitle Introducing generalized cost effectiveness analysis for a comprehensive value assessment. Below is an excerpt: What is this paper about? What is new in this paper?Our recent publication presents a comprehensive framework for evaluating the societal value of health technologies,…
Meng Li (2024) has a nice summary of the generalized cost effectiveness analysis (GCEA) user guide paper (see Shafrin et al. 2024) that was published last month. The GCEA methodology encompasses 15 ‘petals’ across four domains. The uncertainty domain captures how risk aversion and uncertainty in treatment outcomes impact value, including aspects such as outcome…