A Child’s Guide to War
Kids interview one another. Half the children have veteran parents, half do not. Honest and interesting throughout.
Category: Miscellaneous
Is college football amateur athletics or a business?
It’s hard to make the case that college football players are amateurs when their games are decided based on revenue rather than merit. As reported in ESPN, the Rose Bowl–a prestigious college football game–would be willing to select an inferior team if that inferior team would lead to more ticket and merchandise sales. From the mouth…
Music therapy
When we think of medicine we think of pharmaceutical medications, surgery and other interventions. But can music also be used to heal. According to the American Music Therapy Association, the answer is yes. A paper by Gold et al. (2006) finds this is the case for patients with schizophrenia: In people hospitalised with schizophrenia, adding…
Economics Humor
Economist’s aren’t known for having the best sense of humor. Well, a joke about statistics has to be funny, right? Here’s one from How I Met Your Mother.
Confirmation Bias
HT: Incidental Economist.
The Placebo Blocker
Courtesy of xkcd.
On being well-informed
HT: Justin Wolfers via The Incidental Economist.
Health Benefits of a Vacation
The Healthcare Economist will be off through Labor Day, taking a vacation to San Diego. Inspired by this trip, below is a study that finds that people who take vacations are healthier. Although not a randomized trial, this evidence is suggestive. The Huffington Post paraphrases: In a study of 13,000 middle-aged men at risk for heart disease, those who…
3000th Blog Post
Today I am writing the 3,000th post at Healthcare Economist. I started this site way back in January 2006 with this post and the site has grown ever since. Every post is authored by myself, Jason Shafrin. In case you’re late to this party, below I recap some of my most popular posts. The “Healthcare Around the…
The role of coaches and student-athletes
Today I take a break from my traditional blogging on healthcare and briefly discuss two issues related to student-athletes. These questions include: Are coaches employers or educators? Should students get unlimited meal plans? I discuss each below. Much of the content is drawn largely from one of my favorite non-healthcare blogs, Wages of Wins. Are…