Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

How Effective Are African Health Systems? An Analysis Of Guinea, Liberia And Sierra Leone, Kale A. Adote

HON499 projects

While developed countries in the rest of the world have found themselves overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic, in comparison, Africa has been minimally affected given that it has reported lower case counts since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. However, given the destructive potential of this pandemic, this raises the question: how prepared are health systems in Africa to face major outbreaks? To answer this question, this article explored the state of health systems and epidemic preparedness in African countries using Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone as case studies. Given that these three countries were epicentre countries during …

Understanding The Determinants Of The Cost Of Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery, Hun Lee

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Introduction: The relationship between patient demographics, clinical factors, and cost of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) is complex. Investigation of these relationships is important to aid clinical practice and inform reimbursement models. This thesis analyzes multiple different domains in order to understand the significant factors that impact the cost of CABG at the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC).

Methods: Model selection, construction of nested descriptive models, exploration of mediation analysis of the impact of peri-operative factors and cost through length of stay, and construction of estimative models were performed.

Results: Several baseline characteristics, socio-demographics, peri-operative variables, and post-operative variables were …

The Impact Of Levodopa Administration On Learning From Short-Term And Long-Term Action Consequences: A Paradigm Validation., Masood Rezaei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Behavioral and neuroimaging studies have identified two valuation systems in the human brain for controlling behavior known as model-free (MF) and model-based (MB). MF is based on immediate evaluation and MB is based on long-term evaluation of the outcome of our decisions. Previous studies suggest that dopamine baseline activity may play an important role in the balance between the two systems and determine how they compete or interact in controlling our actions. The overarching aims of this study is to investigate the impact of levodopa administration on learning from immediate and long-term action consequences, and to dissociate the role of …

Health Insurance Plan Design And Chronic Disease Management, Daniel E. Feldman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Each year, Americans spend more money on health care than any other industrialized nation, despite comparable mortality rates for people with risk factors for heart disease. The reasons for this lack of health care value in the US are numerous and complex – including market distortions like supplier-inflated pricing and regulatory structures that enable consumers to utilize ubiquitous, high-cost medical technologies that yield uncertain benefits. Health insurance, once thought to be an insignificant contributor to rising health spending, has changed considerably in the past few decades in ways that make it more accessible and more generous in coverage. Health insurance …

Impacts Of Rift Valley Fever Virus: A One Health Approach To Assess Burden And Inform Prevention And Control Options, Catherine Machalaba

Dissertations and Theses

Background: Rift Valley Fever (RVF) is a climate-sensitive emerging zoonotic disease associated with large-scale livestock production losses and human disease burden in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. While recognized as a key One Health issue based on its transmission dynamics involving human, animal and environmental determinants, there has been poor coordination between sectors to reduce the risk and impact of RVF. Efforts to counter the disease remain largely reactive, presenting an ongoing threat to local and global health security. The intent of this dissertation was to improve understanding of the burden of RVF across society and to identify entry …

How Did Medicaid Expansion Affect The Provider Labor Market?, Aaron Wu

Honors Theses

One provision of the Affordable Care Act was to expand Medicaid eligibility for a greater number of low-income patients. The resulting increase in demand for care was largely explored, but the effect of the 2014 Medicaid expansion on the physician and advanced practitioner labor market has not been well researched by economists. Using pooled cross-sectional data from the 2010 – 2018 American Community Surveys, this paper examines whether the Medicaid expansion has caused notable changes in physician, physician assistant, and nurse practitioner hours, compensation, and overall employment. The literature shows that practices that employ nurse practitioners are far more likely …

Informing The Creation Of A Financial Literacy Tool For Cal Poly Students, Kelly Michelle Carroll

Communication Studies

This research project examines the wants, needs, and desires of Cal Poly students to inform the creation of a financial literacy tool (tentatively named “MoneySmart”) to be created by another student. The methodologies used to gauge these metrics were a literature review and questionnaire. The literature review aids in understanding research regarding the current state of student financial literacy in the United States, including student attitudes toward the topic. Subsequent findings were used to create the questionnaire, which inquired about students’ financial stress, confidence in their abilities to manage their personal finances, specific interests for the design and contents of …

A Review Of The Characteristics Of Super-Utilizers And Evidence-Based Approaches To Reduce Healthcare Utilization, Suswara Mandala Rayabandla

Capstone Experience

A significant fraction of health care resources in the United States of America is utilized by a comparatively small number of people. An examination of the attributes and patterns and associated evidence-based interventions for such high-utilizing patients might aid clinicians to improve interventions to address the distinctive needs of these patients, decrease their risks for numerous hospitalizations, and contribute to reducing the costs. This study aims at exploring the existing literature on the characteristics of super-utilizers and interventions to reduce avoidable use of health care among this population. The method used for this research is a comprehensive literature review. Search …

Investigating The Role Of Income Inequality In The Impact Of Natural Disasters In Lower Middle-Income Countries, Madison L. Graham

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Essays On The Disposition Effect, Matthew Henriksson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two essays that shed new light on the disposition effect – that is, the tendency for investors to be especially eager to realize gains over losses. The first essay combines county-level natural disaster data with individual investor transactions to document an increased disposition effect for investors impacted by a natural disaster. This effect is increasing in disaster severity and decreasing in the length of time following the event, suggesting that extreme natural disasters can significantly influence investor behavior, especially in the short term. These findings are not explained by liquidity needs, tax incentives, or informed trading. The …

Treatments For Cancer Given Orally: Patients' Perceptions Of Distress Due To Financial Toxicity, Ellen Carr

Dissertations

Purpose/Aims: For adult participants who have received or are receiving treatment for hematologic and solid tumor malignancies given orally, this study describes the relationship between participants’ experience of financial toxicity (FT), the participants’ perception of distress associated with FT, and participants’ self-identified adherence to prescribed treatments in the context of FT.

Background: FT has emerged as an additional source of distress for cancer patients. The costs of treatments given orally can be prohibitively expensive for patients. Therefore, these patients may experience considerable distress and may not adhere to treatments as prescribed.

Method: Descriptive cross-sectional correlational design study of a sample …

Mechanisms Of Value-Biased Prioritization In Fast Sensorimotor Decision Making, Kivilcim Afacan-Seref

Dissertations and Theses

In dynamic environments, split-second sensorimotor decisions must be prioritized according to potential payoffs to maximize overall rewards. The impact of relative value on deliberative perceptual judgments has been examined extensively, but relatively little is known about value-biasing mechanisms in the common situation where physical evidence is strong but the time to act is severely limited. This research examines the behavioral and electrophysiological indices of how value biases split-second perceptual decisions and the possible mechanisms underlying the process. In prominent decision models, a noisy but statistically stationary representation of sensory evidence is integrated over time to an action-triggering bound, and value-biases …

How We Value Future Generations, Elias Connors Dorf

Senior Projects Fall 2020

This project examines how we value future generations. From looking at different ways we value future and present wellbeing we are able to see a tension that arises from having a high value on both. When looking at examples of ways we value future wellbeing we can see that if you value future wellbeing highly it will devalue current wellbeing. Then we look for a justification for valuing one over the other. This leads us into two ways of how we justify valuing either valuation of wellbeing and a discussion of the average and the classical principles of utility. We …

Three Essays On Health Economics And Policy Evaluation, Shishir Shakya

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation consists of three essays on the U.S. Health care policy. Each paragraph below refers to the three abstracts for the three chapters in this dissertation, respectively. I provide quantitative evidence on how much Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) affects the retail opioid prescribing behaviors. Using the American Community Survey (ACS), I retrieve county-level high dimensional panel data set from 2010 to 2017. I employ three separate identification strategies: difference-in-difference, double selection post-LASSO, and spatial difference-in-difference. I compare how the retail opioid prescribing behaviors of counties, that are mandatory for prescribers to check the PDMP before prescribing controlled substances …

Observing The Effects Of Antimalarial Drug Availability On Women’S Work Absenteeism, Rei Imada

CMC Senior Theses

This study aims to provide insight on how availability of antimalarial drugs can help alleviate the economic burden of malaria. Much of the existing literature that looks into the effects of antimalarial drug availability focuses on the associated health benefits, but fails to draw a link to the economic benefits that may also be incurred. Using data from the 2015-2016 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey and Malaria Indicator Survey, this study performs a series of multiple regressions to observe how increased availability of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), a front-line antimalarial drug in most African countries, affects likelihood of work absenteeism …

Value-Based Reimbursements In The Us Health Care Market : Direct And Spillover Effects Of Medicare Readmissions Program, Soumyadeb Chatterjee

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In this thesis, I take up the question of how the Medicare penalties introduced by the Hospital Readmissions Reduction program (HRRP) impacted the US health care system. The demand side of US health care system is highly fragmented where hospitals and other providers have to serve very different kinds of patients from different payers. Since the majority of a hospital's income is drawn from Medicare, a sharp reduction in its reimbursements is bound to have an effect on its health care delivery to all patients.

An American Crisis: An Analysis Of Maternal Mortality Across The U.S., Emily Fernandes

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.