Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Food Prices And The Dynamics Of Body Weight, Dana P. Goldman, Darius N. Lakdawalla, Yuhui Zheng

Yuhui Zheng

No abstract provided.

The Benefits Of Risk Factor Prevention In Americans Aged 51 Years And Older, Dana P. Goldman, Yuhui Zheng, Federico Girosi, Pierre-Carl Michaud, S. Jay Olshansky, David Cutler, John W. Rowe

Yuhui Zheng

Objectives. We assessed the potential health and economic benefits of reducing common risk factors in older Americans.

Methods. A dynamic simulation model tracked a national cohort of persons 51 and 52 years of age to project their health and medical spending in prevention scenarios for diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and smoking.

Results. The gain in life span from successful treatment of a person aged 51 or 52 years for obesity would be 0.85 years; for hypertension, 2.05 years; and for diabetes, 3.17 years. A 51- or 52-year-old person who quit smoking would gain 3.44 years. Despite living longer, those successfully treated …

Understanding The Economic Consequences Of Shifting Trends In Population Health, Pierre-Carl Michaud, Dana P. Goldman, Darius N. Lakdawalla, Yuhui Zheng, Adam Gailey

Yuhui Zheng

No abstract provided.

International Differences In Longevity And Health And Their Economic Consequences, Pierre-Carl Michaud, Dana P. Goldman, Darius N. Lakdawalla, Adam Gailey, Yuhui Zheng

Yuhui Zheng

No abstract provided.

Risky Sexual Behavior, Testing And Hiv Treatments, Stéphane Mechoulan

Stéphane Mechoulan

This paper studies the impact of antiretroviral therapies (ARVs) on HIV testing and risky sexual behavior. I use data collected in San Francisco among a high-risk population from 1994 to 2002. The evidence supports the hypothesis of a causal link between the introduction of ARVs in late 1996 and the sharp increase in risky sexual behavior that ensued. Further, following ARVs, testers take more risks while non-testers take fewer risks. The proportion of testers remains stable, which was ambiguous a priori. To the extent that ARVs may induce changes in the composition of the testing and non-testing groups, such effects …

Economic Rationality And Health And Lifestyle Choices For People With Diabetes., Rachel M. Baker

Professor Rachel Baker

Economic rationality is traditionally represented by goal-oriented, maximising behaviour, or 'instrumental rationality'. Such a consequentialist, instrumental model of choice is often implicit in a biomedical approach to health promotion and education. The research reported here assesses the relevance of a broader conceptual framework of rationality (which includes 'procedural' and 'expressive' rationality as complements to an instrumental model of rationality) in a health context (type 2 diabetes).

Q methodology was used to derive 'factors' underlying health and lifestyle choices, based on factor analysis of the results of a card sorting procedure undertaken by 27 respondents with type 2 diabetes. These factors …

Q Methodology In Health Economics, Rachel M. Baker, Carl Thompson, Russel Mannion

Professor Rachel Baker

The recognition that health economists need to understand the meaning of data if they are to adequately understand research findings which challenge conventional economic theory has led to the growth of qualitative modes of enquiry in health economics. The use of qualitative methods of exploration and description alongside mainstream quantitative techniques gives rise to a number of epistemological, ontological and methodological challenges: difficulties in accounting for subjectivity in choices, the need for rigour and transparency in method, and problems of disciplinary acceptability to health economists. This paper introduces Q methodology as a means of overcoming some of these challenges. The …