Physicians vs. Statisticians

An interesting post by Arnold Kling (“Doctors, Pharmaceuticals, and Statisticians“) reports on a randomized clinical trial which demonstrated that on average, angioplasties have no incremental health benefits once the patient is placed on multiple medications such as beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, statins and blood thinners. Dr. Kling writes: “Doctors think that they add value by giving…

Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes fight Malaria?

According to the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), “[m]alaria is the most important parasitic disease in the world. It kills 3,000 children every day and more than one million each year. The majority of these deaths occur among children under five years of age and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa.” In the most recent…

Is the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Over?

An interesting paper by Douglas Almond (2006) examines whether or not influenza infections of pregnant mothers can influence long-term outcomes of the in utero babies. Almond uses the 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic in the United States as a source of exogenous variation to test the fetal origins hypothesis. The fetal origins hypothesis states that “certain…

Does immigration decrease emergency department usage?

There are many myths in the popular press regarding what are the major determinants of increasing health care costs. Some pundits claim that illegal immigrants that do not purchase insurance are using emergency departments (ED) for primary care services, thus driving up the cost of health care for American citizens (see Science Daily‘s interview with…

Good News: Cancer rates fall

With so much negative news on how ‘our health care system is failing,’ it is nice to see that “failure” may be an overstatement.  According to the USA Today (“Cancer Deaths Drop“), the American Cancer Society reports that cancer rates have fallen for the second straight year. This is great news.  The National Center for…

Influenza Vaccination: Part V

A final analysis of the cost of flu vaccination is provided to us by Margaret Coleman, John Fontanesi and colleagues (2004). The authors examine the cost of the vaccination for different size practices in a scheduled visit and walk-in setting. Unlike most studies, this research team decided to applied overhead expenses to cost of vaccinations.…

Influenza Vaccination: Part IV

What is the best method to immunize individuals? Vaccinations are typically delivered via scheduled or walk-in visits. Mass vaccinations, however, may offer a more efficient means to vaccinate large populations. The mass vaccination locations can take place at schools, convention centers, fair grounds, churches, parking lots or other places (see Arkansas’ Mass Flu Vaccine locations…

Influenza Vaccination: Part III

Yesterday we examined the cost effectiveness of the influenza vaccine in children. Today I will look at two papers which focus on the same question using children as the sub-population of interest. Estimated influenza infection rate among young healthy children is between 35% and 50% each year. Cohen and Nettleman (2000) look at preschool children…