The opioid epidemic

epidemic. noun an outbreak of disease that spreads quickly and affects many individuals at the same time : an outbreak of epidemic disease an outbreak or product of sudden rapid spread, growth, or development The opioid epidemic is one that has impact a large number of Americans. Data from 2019 shows that there were over…

The long-term effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of public health interventions; how can we model behavior?

That is the title of an interesting review paper by Squires et al. 2023. The abstract is below: The effectiveness and cost of a public health intervention is dependent on complex human behaviors, yet health economic models typically make simplified assumptions about behavior, based on little theory or evidence. This paper reviews existing methods across…

Estimating the Economic Cost of Obesity

Using 2001-2016 Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys (MEPS) data from working adults, a paper by Cawley et al. (2021) find that:  Adults with obesity in the United States compared with those with normal weight experienced higher annual medical care costs by $2,505 or 100%, with costs increasing significantly with class of obesity, from 68.4% for class…

Exercising works

Not a surprise, but the study approach used by Kulaja et al. (2022) is interesting. They examine identical twins an examine how early adult exercise habits impact long term health outcomes. The abstract is below. …monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs discordant for health habits provide an interesting natural experiment. Twin pairs discordant for leisure‐time physical activity…

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…