Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Let us say we observe a women without any symptoms for hemophilia. What are the odds she is a carrier for the disease? A few relevant points about the disease are helpful. First, hemophilia is a recessive, X-chromosome linked trait. Thus, males with hemophilia inherited the disease from their mothers via their X-chromosome and females…
The Economist has an interesting series of article (here and here) on covid-19, the new WHO name of the corona virus. One key issue is how strict containment efforts should be. These decisions are being made not just based on the potential to impact the health of a country’s population but also economic and political…
Does California have a public option? Suicide hotspots. 2019 John Bates Clark Medalist. Coronavirus crackdown. Rebottling the Gini.
There is an increasing awareness of how air pollution is affecting health. As McHardy et al. (2020) report in the Health Affairs blog: Ambient air pollution is a key risk factor for preventable noncommunicable diseases (NCDs): It kills more than four million people every year globally. Worldwide, air pollution is responsible for 29 percent of all deaths and disease…
Who is the more ethical person: those who help strangers or those who help family members? The answer is: it depends. According to McManus et al. (2020), the answer is “it depends”. In Studies 1 and 2, agents who helped a stranger were judged as more morally good and trustworthy than those who helped kin,…
While at the national level, there has been much press about President Trump’s aim of compelling pharmaceutical companies to disclose prices on TV ads (since blocked in the Judiciary), at the state level changes are also afoot. A number of states are making moves to compel pharmaceutical companies to disclose drug prices. Others are compelling…
There’s no algorithm for empathy. Skateboarding. Housing and health. Coronavirus would be worse without the web. Health fact-checking the State of the Union.
Goitein (2020) argues that Clinician-Directed Performance Improvement is the best way to improve quality. I agree. This approach empowers physicians and other health care professionals to identify areas for improvement and work on those. Clinician Directed Performance Improvement (CDPI)…had its origins in 2013, when a group of physicians requested support for a physician-led quality program…
Antibiotics are valuable drugs. Being able to quickly combat infections if very important. However, overuse of antibiotics is problematic as the infecting organism may mutate more rapidly, leading to antibiotic resistant strains of the disease. Thus, when there is evidence of an infection, we should prescribe antibiotics; when there is no evidence, we should not.…
Today, I hosted the Academic Health Economists’ (AHE) blog weekly round-up for 3 February 2020. I review 3 very different papers: Capacity constraints and time allocation in public health clinics. Health Economics [PubMed] Published 14th January 2020 Outcome measures for oncology alternative payment models: practical considerations and recommendations. American Journal of Managed Care [PubMed] Published 11th December…