Distributional Cost Effectiveness Analysis: A simple example

I have written previously about the need for distributional cost-effectiveness analysis (DCEA) which would increase the value of treatments who improve the health for individuals who currently have the worst expected quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE). I’ve written about this in AJMC and Health Affairs among other places. One key question many individuals may have is…

Steps Health Professionals Can Take to Reduce Inequality in Health Outcomes

That is the title of an article in AJMC co-authored with Meena Venkatachalam. An excerpt is below: While decision-makers traditionally have ignored the issue of inequality, academic researchers have already developed tools to quantify a treatment’s value from reductions in inequality. Two common methods for doing so are distributional cost effectiveness analysis (DCEA) and multiple-criteria…

Disparities in COVID-19 hospitalization rates

Azar et al. (2020) use electronic health record data to examine differences in COVID-19 hospitalization rates by patient characteristics. The authors find that: …compared with non-Hispanic white patients, nonHispanic African American patients had 2.7 times the odds of hospitalization, after adjustment for age, sex, comorbidities, and income. These findings echo similar COVID-19-related conclusions across California.…

Wages and Benefits

For the past few years, some economists have claims that increases in income inequality are due to increased cost of employee benefits such as health insurance.  For instance, let’s say that health insurance cost $10,000 per worker.  Workers with a wage of $20,000 have total compensation of $30,000 including benefits, and workers with wages of…