Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
That is the finding from a study by Jia et al. (2023) published last week. The authors find that: Among 4003 eligible RCTs [randomized controlled trials], 1241 studies (31.0%) cited Cochrane reviews, 1698 studies (42.4%) cited prior non-Cochrane reviews, and 2265 studies (56.6%) cited either type of systematic review or both; 1738 RCTs (43.4%) cited…
In short, the answer is ‘no’. The full rationale is here, but here is an excerpt from their policy: Nonhuman artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies do not qualify for authorship.If these models or tools are used to create content or assist with writing or manuscript preparation, authors must take responsibility for…
In drug development, clinical trials typically aim for a population that is representative of the patients who would be eligible for the treatment. While randomized controlled trials (RCTs) typically focus on measuring the average health impact of a drug across this population, a paper Basu and Gurjal (2020) argue that treatment effect heterogeneity and self-selection…
Where X can be basically any task. Likely your answer is that you are pretty good at X. In fact, you probably think you are above average. There is an explanation for this: the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is a bias where people generally believe they are better at a task than they are. This effect…
Today I put together the journal round-up for the Academic Health Economists’ blog, one of my favorite reads. I review three papers: Understanding price growth in the market for targeted oncology therapies. American Journal of Managed Care [PubMed] Published 14th June 2019 Do cancer treatments have option value? Real‐world evidence from metastatic melanoma. Health Economics [PubMed]…
According to a paper by Moskatel and Slutsky (2019), the answer appears to be ‘yes’. In this paper, we ask whether UberX’s entry into a city caused substitution away from traditional ambulances for low‐risk patients, reducing overall volume. Using a city‐panel over‐time and leverage that UberX enter markets sporadically over multiple years, we find that…
At first this seems like an easy question to answer: catastrophic health care costs mean lots of money. But how do you define a lot? A million dollars? Ten thousand dollars? A hundred dollars? One question is, should catastrophic be measured in absolute or relative terms. For instance, the a ten thousand dollar cost may…
An interesting new approach to academic article publishing as described by Josh Cohen from Tufts University: Open-peer review journals preserve scientific review by conducting reviews after the article’s initial release. Review takes place in the open, with comments and the peer reviewer’s name published online, along with the article authors’ responses and revised manuscript, and…
Which treatment is the best? This is a seemingly simple question, but there are many answers. Some people would say whatever the clinical evidence says. Others would contend that patient preferences are paramount and patient preferences should rule the day. In our current world of health care largely paid for by insurance, how should the preferences…
Who are the leaders in the field of health economics? Below I list the top 10 health economics scholars, institutions and journals as ranked by a recent JHE article by Adam Wagstaff and Anthony J. Culyer. A more complete list is also available here. Top Health Economists David M. Cutler Jonathan Gruber Frank A. Sloan…