Health Economics Commons^™

The Pink Tax: A Comparative Case Study Between Tennessee And Washington State, Megha Chitturi

Baker Scholar Projects

The imposition of an additional luxury tax on menstrual health products, otherwise referred to as the “Pink Tax” or the “Tampon Tax”, is present in some states while absent in others. The decision to repeal such a tax is one that has proven to be critical, as it removes the connotation that such products are of “luxury” and make them more accessible to menstruators throughout the state. As of 2023, twenty-three states have eliminated the tax. The state of Washington falls under that parameter while Tennessee does not. The purpose of this undergraduate honors thesis is to explore the potential …

Professional Sporting Events Increase Seasonal Influenza Mortality In Us Cities, Alexander Cardazzi, Brad Humphreys, Jane E. Ruseski, Brian P. Soebbing, Nicholas Watanabe

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down sporting events worldwide. Local policy makers and league officials face important decisions about restarting play, especially in professional leagues that draw large numbers of spectators to games. We analyze the impact of professional sporting events on local seasonal influenza mortality to develop evidence that will help inform sports league reopening policy decisions. Results from a difference-in-differences model applied to data from a sample of US cities that gained new professional sports teams over the period 1962-2016 show that the presence of games in these cities increased local influenza mortality by between 4% and 24%, depending …

Supporting Medicaid In Virginia, Scott Burns

Exigence

This report analyzes Medicaid in Virginia, the needs-based social health insurance program providing health coverage to children, pregnant women, working parents, the disabled, and elderly who cannot afford health costs on their own. It supports the value of the Medicaid program to these beneficiaries’ long term health, the healthcare sector, cost control and Virginia’s economy. Additionally, it analyzes healthcare policy looking at what effects the Affordable Care Act has had in improving healthcare access and what effects healthcare reform under president-elect Donald Trump’s administration and the Republican controlled 115^th United States Congress might have targeting healthcare cost. Ultimately this …

Concurrent Sexual Partnerships Do Not Explain The Hiv Epidemics In Africa: A Systematic Review Of The Evidence, Larry Sawers, Eileen Stillwaggon

Economics Faculty Publications

The notion that concurrent sexual partnerships are especially common in sub-Saharan Africa and explain the region’s high HIV prevalence is accepted by many as conventional wisdom. In this paper, we evaluate the quantitative and qualitative evidence offered by the principal proponents of the concurrency hypothesis and analyze the mathematical model they use to establish the plausibility of the hypothesis.

We find that research seeking to establish a statistical correlation between concurrency and HIV prevalence either finds no correlation or has important limitations. Furthermore, in order to simulate rapid spread of HIV, mathematical models require unrealistic assumptions about frequency of sexual …

Complexity, Cofactors, And The Failure Of Aids Policy In Africa, Eileen Stillwaggon

Economics Faculty Publications

Global AIDS policy still treats HIV as an exceptional case, abstracting from the context in which infection occurs. Policy is based on a simplistic theory of HIV causation, and evaluated using outdated tools of health economics. Recent calls for a health systems strategy – preventing and treating HIV within a programme of comprehensive health care – have not yet influenced the silo approach of AIDS policy.

Evidence continues to accumulate, showing that multiple factors, such as malnutrition, malaria and helminthes, increase the risk of sexual and vertical transmission of HIV. Moreover, complementary interventions that reduce viral load, improve immune response, …