Challenges in implementing DCEA

In recent years, policymakers and payers have been focused increasingly not only on how new health technologies improve overall health, but also whether they can reduce health disparities. Oftentimes, however, discussions around health disparities are conducted on a qualitative basis with litlted quantitative analysis of tradeoffs between equity and effectiveness. Distributional cost effectiveness analysis (DCEA)…

Unintended effects of soda taxes

Soda taxes seem like a sensible tax. Most studies show that soda is not healthy and taxing something that leads to negative health benefits seems like a reasonable policy. A key question, however, is whether soda taxes–more formally known as taxes on sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs)–lead to a reduction in soda consumption and healthier eating…

Association of health care utilization and costs with patient-reported outcomes in patients with ankylosing spondylitis

That is the title of paper recently published in JMCP along with co-authors Alexis Ogdie, Mark Hwang, Phani Veeranki, Alexandria Portelli, Steven Sison, Sofia Pedro, Steven Hass, Peter Hur, Nina Kim, Esther Yi, and Kaleb Michaud. The paper abstract is below. BACKGROUND: Interventions for ankylosing spondylitis (AS) have improved patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in clinical studies. However,…

Health care utilization and costs associated with functional status in patients with psoriatic arthritis

That is the title of paper recently published in JMCP along with co-authors Alexis Ogdie, Mark Hwang, Phani Veeranki, Alexandria Portelli, Steven Sison, Sofia Pedro, Steven Hass, Peter Hur, Nina Kim, Esther Yi, and Kaleb Michaud. The paper abstract is below. BACKGROUND: The Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI) has been validated and widely used in…