Health Economics Commons^™

Welcome To Value-Based Purchasing, Neil I. Goldfarb, Dale Shaller

Value-Based Purchasing Newsletter

No abstract available.

Employment Success Of Community And Technical College Program Graduates As An Indicator Of Economic Development In West Virginia, Kristin L. Mallory

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to analyze existing wage data to quantify the employment success of community and technical college graduates by program as an indicator of economic development in West Virginia. Data for the variables were obtained from archival databases and a cooperative agreement between state agencies. Descriptive statistics were utilized to examine employment rates, range of earnings, and employment in-industry of community and technical college graduates from 23 programs from 1997 to 2002. Graduates in the health fields demonstrated both the highest and lowest ratios of employment, with the mean employment rate for all programs of 68.12 …

Examining Adherence And Sexual Behavior Among Patients On Antiretroviral Therapy In India, Avina Sarna, Indrani Gupta, Sanjay Pujari, A.K. Sengar, Rajiv Garg, Ellen Weiss

HIV and AIDS

With increased availability of ART, HIV-positive individuals are living healthier lives and continuing or resuming sexual activity. However, optimism related to ART’s success in slowing disease progression, reducing viral load, and improving health status may lead to more risky sexual practices and a possible increase in transmission of infections. To determining the sexual behavior of HIV-positive persons on ART, the Horizons program, in collaboration with research partners in Delhi and Pune, conducted a study to assess current levels of adherence to ART among a sample of people living with HIV/AIDS, identify the factors that influence their adherence to treatment, and …

Does Falling Smoking Lead To Rising Obesity?, Jonathan Gruber, Michael D. Frakes

Faculty Scholarship

The strong negative correlation over time between smoking rates and obesity have led some to suggest that reduced smoking is increasing weight gain in the U.S.. This conclusion is supported by the findings of Chou et al. (2004), who conclude that higher cigarette prices lead to increased body weight. We investigate this issue and find no evidence that reduced smoking leads to weight gain. Using the cigarette tax rather than the cigarette price and controlling for non-linear time effects, we find a negative effect of cigarette taxes on body weight, implying that reduced smoking leads to lower body weights. Yet …

Unreimbursed Emergency Department Costs Incurred By Hispanic Workers And Their Dependents In Central Kentucky, Sandra L. Senft

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Health care costs in the United States are a concern to policy makers, healthcare providers, and the population using medical services. Because fewer individuals have health insurance, as costs continue to rise, so have the levels of charity care provided through the Emergency Departments at many hospitals. Hispanics are a growing population thought to be receiving an increasing portion of this care. The Hispanic population in Kentucky has seen a significant increase in recent years, in large part because of the demand for agricultural workers. It has been established that a sizeable part of the Hispanic migrant worker community is …

World Bank, Adrienne Stohr

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The mission of the World Bank is to aid developing countries stabilize their economies through financial and technical assistance. The five dominant themes that emerge in a review of the World Bank literature are: health, gender, environment, globalization, and global governance. Each of these themes is broadly related to issues that consistently influence the larger issue of how the World Bank incorporates, rejects, or impacts human rights.

Micro-Level Estimation Of Child Malnutrition Indicators And Its Application In Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

One of the major limitations in addressing child malnutrition is lack of information that could be used to target resources. By combining demographic and health survey (DHS) and population census data, the author disaggregates the estimates of the prevalence of child malnutrition in Cambodia from currently available 17 DHS strata into 1,594 communes. The methodology is built on the small-area estimation technique developed by Elbers, Lanjouw, and Lanjouw. The author extends it to jointly estimate multiple indicators and to allow for a richer structure of error terms. Average standard errors for the commune-level estimates in this study were about 4 …

Refundable Tax Credits For Health Insurance, David W. Emmons, Eva Madly, Stephen A. Woodbury

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Refundable Tax Credits For Health Insurance: The Sensitivity Of Simulated Impacts To Assumed Behavior, David W. Emmons, Eva Madly, Stephen A. Woodbury

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We replicate and extend a simulation model developed by Jonathan Gruber with the goals of illuminating Gruber's modeling of health insurance coverage under a tax credit and examining the sensitivity of the results to changes in the model's key parameters. The replications suggest that a refundable tax credit of $1,000 for a single individual or $2,000 for a family for private health insurance would reduce the number of uninsured individuals by between 17.5 and 28 percent and require new government expenditures of between $16.6 and $44 billion, of which about $7.4-$9.7 billion would be for coverage of previously uninsured individuals. …

Post-Consolidation Challenges., Biodun Adedipe

Bullion

This paper tend to look at the huge complexity of a consolidation programme of the kind embarked upon by the CBN demands caution, constant reappraisal of strategies and actions, and full attention to the identified and emerging challenges. The paper is structured into three parts, dealing with the benefits of a properly conceived and effectively implemented consolidation programme, which has several components. beyond the benefits, the challenges that the banking industry stakeholders (especially the Central Bank of Nigeria) will face when the "dust settles". The final part offers some advice on what the CBN and other stakeholders should do in …

Reducing Child Malnutrition: How Far Does Income Growth Take Us? By Lawrence Haddad, Harold Alderman, Simon Appleton, Lina Song And Yisehac Yohannes: A Review, Sani Bawa

Economic and Financial Review

This is a review of the article “Reducing Child Malnutrition: How Far Does Income Growth Take Us?” By Lawrence Haddad, Harold Alderman, Simon Appleton, Lina Song and Yisehac Yohannes which was published in the World Bank Economic Review, Vol.17, No. 1, 2003.

The Effects Of Malpractice Tort Reform On Defensive Medicine, Heather M. O'Neill, Katherine D. Hennesy

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

Medical malpractice crises occur across states to differing degrees, thus the proposed changes in state tort reforms differ accordingly. The primary overt goals of tort reform aim to address: rising medical malpractice insurance rates, increased frequency and severity of awards, and the increased incidence of doctors shuttering offices or fleeing states due to untoward malpractice environments. A secondary goal of tort reform is to reduce health care costs attributed to malpractice costs. Clearly, as malpractice tort reforms are debated in state capitols and reforms take place, the effects of the reforms on the goals above can be examined. However, there …

Why Equality? How Equality?: The Desirability Of A Focus On Income Distribution, Arthur Macewan

Economics Faculty Publication Series

Much of the discussion of economic development in low and middle income countries and of poverty reduction has either ignored the issue of income distribution or has tended to view income distribution only in terms of its impact on economic growth. In this paper I argue that such an approach is misguided. I will explain, first, why I believe that it is desirable to give a great deal of attention to income distribution in the analysis of economic development and poverty reduction. My argument includes conceptual, political and practical elements. Second, I will suggest some of the ways in which …

Comment: A Selective Overview Of Nonparametric Methods In Financial Econometrics, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

These comments concentrate on two issues arising from Fan’s overview. The first concerns the importance of finite sample estimation bias relative to the specification and discretization biases that are emphasized in Fan’s discussion. Past research and simulations given here both reveal that finite sample effects can be more important than the other two effects when judged from either statistical or economic viewpoints. Second, we draw attention to a very different nonparametric technique that is based on computing an empirical version of the quadratic variation process. This technique is not mentioned by Fan but has many advantages and has accordingly attracted …

The Economic Impact Of Methamphetamine Use In Benton County, Arkansas, Jeffery T. Collins

Publications and Presentations

Methamphetamine use among the employed population is on the rise as general methamphetamine use increases. Many employers are unaware of the extent of the methamphetamine crisis and the harmful effects that employee methamphetamine use has on the firm. While methamphetamine use is associated with tremendous expenses for society in the form of direct health care, law enforcement, and environmental costs, this study focuses exclusively on the increased costs that firms bear as a result of the methamphetamine use of their employees. The Benton County Methamphetamine Task Force commissioned this project from the Center for Business and Economic Research in the …

The Effects Of Malpractice Tort Reform On Defensive Medicine, Katherine D. Hennesy, Heather M. O'Neill

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

Positive defensive medicine occurs when physicians order additional tests or procedures primarily to avoid malpractice liability. This paper shows the degree of defensive medicine occurring across states is related to the malpractice environment in the states. As the environment changes due to malpractice tort reform, defensive medicine practices also change. This paper shows the existence of positive defensive medicine and how it adds to total health care expenditures for head trauma victims in 23 states in 2000. Moreover, given different malpractice environments across states, we witness variations in defensive medicine practices leading to differences in health care expenditures.

The Road To Universal Health Coverage In Massachusetts: A Story In Three Parts, John E. Mcdonough

New England Journal of Public Policy

In 1988, the Massachusetts Legislature passed a new law, a “play or pay” employer mandate, requiring all employers with six or more workers to provide health insurance coverage for their employees. A few years later, with Medicaid identified as a “Budget Buster,” the Weld administration sought deregulation as the way to cut costs and expand access by establishing MassHealth, which dropped the employer mandate and expanded Medicaid, and eventually distinguished Massachusetts as the state with the greatest percent of covered citizens. But MassHealth enrollment has declined as premium costs have risen, and the Uncompensated Care Pool is once again faced …

Fear Assessment: Cost-Benefit Analysis And The Pricing Of Fear And Anxiety, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

Risk assessment is now a common feature of regulatory practice, but fear assessment is not. In particular, environmental, health and safety agencies such as EPA, FDA, OSHA, NHTSA, and CPSC, commonly count death, illness and injury as costs for purposes of cost-benefit analysis, but almost never incorporate fear, anxiety or other welfare-reducing mental states into the analysis. This is puzzling, since fear and anxiety are welfare setbacks, and since the very hazards regulated by these agencies - air or water pollutants, toxic waste dumps, food additives and contaminants, workplace toxins and safety threats, automobiles, dangerous consumer products, radiation, and so …

Using Incentives To Encourage Aids Programs And Policies In The Workplace: A Study Of Feasibility And Impact In Thailand, Simon Baker, Srisuman Sartsara, Patchara Rumakom, Philip Guest, Katie D. Schenk, Anthony Pramualratana, Suparat Suksakulwat, Surachai Panakitsuwan, Sikarat Moonmeung

HIV and AIDS

A recently completed Horizons study in Thailand examined the question of how to encourage the private sector to become actively involved in developing and improving workplace HIV/AIDS programs. The study found that the AIDS-response Standard Organization (ASO) initiative mobilized a moderate proportion of different types of companies to develop and improve HIV/AIDS workplace policies and programs. The data also reveal that companies that were eligible for the insurance discount made the greatest improvements. Thus a financial incentive combined with efforts to tap into managers’ willingness to respond to the epidemic can be important motivators for certain companies to improve their …

Identifying Compliance Issues In The Community Health Care Clinic Environment, Faye K. Beery

Graduate Theses

This study explored the high number of failed appointments and follow-up appointments at a community health care children’s clinic. A thirty-seven item questionnaire was randomly given to 112 participants seeking health care at the clinic on a random basis. Based on literature reviews, five hypothesis were generated to examine reasons for failing to keep appointments for children: 1. Communication difficulties between healthcare personnel and parents regarding patient comprehension of instructions and bottle directions were anticipated. 2. Patient/physician/clinic relationships were expected to influence patient compliance. The need for more reminder calls for appointments was anticipated to be a factor in patient …

The Productivity Consequences Of Two Ergonomic Interventions, Kelly Derango, Benjamin C. Amick, Michelle Robertson, Ted Rooney, Anne Moore, Lianna Bazzani

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Pre- and post-intervention data on health outcomes, absenteeism, and productivity from a longitudinal, quasi-experimental design field study of office workers was used to evaluate the economic consequences of two ergonomic interventions. Researchers assigned individuals in the study to three groups: a group that received an ergonomically designed chair and office ergonomics training; a group that received office ergonomics training only; and a control group. The results show that while training alone has neither a statistically significant effect on health nor productivity, the chair-with-training intervention substantially reduced pain and improved productivity. Neither intervention affected sick leave hours.

Microfinance And Households Coping With Hiv/Aids In Zimbabwe: An Exploratory Study, Carolyn Barnes, Erica Keogh, Nontokozo Nemarundwe, Loveness Nyikahadzoi, Ellen Weiss

HIV and AIDS

This study, conducted in Zimbabwe, sought to better understand the relationship between a microfinance program, Zambuko Trust, and how microentrepreneurs’ households cope with the impact of HIV/AIDS. The study examined how HIV/AIDS is affecting Zambuko’s operations and what microfinance institutions (MFIs) can do to lessen the impact of HIV/AIDS on their clients and operations. The findings indicate several small yet important ways that MFI programs help microentrepreneurs and their families respond to these impacts through access to credit and business management training. Participation in a microfinance program led to income smoothing and better financial management, which can help households mitigate …

Office Workers' Productivity Enhanced By Ergonomics, Kelly Derango

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

A Mathematical Analysis Of The Financial And Medical Impact Of Hepatitis C Among Drug Users In Perth, Western Australia, Raelene Kirkpatrick

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The ability of public health planners continues to be hampered by uncertainties encountered with transmissible diseases. Key epidemiological factors such as, how many Western Australian injecting drug users are hepatitis C seropositive or will become infected, duration of intravenous drug use, the intensity of infection, the fraction of those infected that will develop end-stage disease and after how long a period, all combine to limit the ability of a mathematical model to predict future trends. These models can, however, provide information about certain epidemiological parameters and identify data required to predict future trends. They can be applied to make predictions …

The Relationship Between Insurance Type And Health Care Costs, Use And Choice Of Outpatient Provider, Dan-Alexandru Balan

Dissertations

The impact of insurance type on health care is a very important topic in health economics. This dissertation examines the relationship between insurance type and health care cost, use and outpatient provider choice using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data. I examine separately three types of services: emergency, nonemergency hospital care and outpatient because the effect of insurance type on use may depend on the type of health care service provided. The insurance types analyzed are Health Maintenance Organization (HMO), private fee-for-service employer insurance, private fee-for-service non-employer insurance, government insurance and self insurance. For each service, individuals paying for health …

State Regulations Of Smoking In Public Places: Determinants And Implications On The Demand For Smoking And Consumers' Behavior, Ioana Raluca Mazare

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Globalization: Problems And Promises, St Mary's University

President's Peace Commission - Programs

The President’s Peace Commission existed from 1984 to 2013 at St. Mary's University. The Commission fostered an ethical commitment to participate in the establishment of world peace and social justice.

This program is about international business and globalization.

The Economic Cost Of Depressive Disorders: Evidence From A Large Midwest Public University, Alketa Hysenbegasi

Dissertations

This dissertation aims to estimate the total cost of depression and the benefits of its treatment per diagnosed depressed student in Western Michigan University. To accomplish this, first, I measure the overall impact of depression and the effectiveness of its treatment on the student school performance. The empirical evidence show that diagnosed depression decreases student GPA by 0.48 points (almost a half grade), but this impairment is reduced by treatment about 0.43 points. Further, I develop and validate different measurements of student school performance and I observe that the negative effect of diagnosed depression and the positive effect of treatment …

Studies On The Formation Of Dna-Cationic Lipid Composite Films And Dna Hybridization In The Composites, Murali Sastry, Vidya Ramakrishnan, Mrunalini Pattarkine, Krishna N. Ganesh

Faculty Works

The formation of composite films of double-stranded DNA and cationic lipid molecules (octadecylamine, ODA) and the hybridization of complementary single-stranded DNA molecules in such composite films are demonstrated. The immobilization of DNA is accomplished by simple immersion of a thermally evaporated ODA film in the DNA solution at close to physiological pH. The entrapment of the DNA molecules in the cationic lipid film is dominated by attractive electrostatic interaction between the negatively charged phosphate backbone of the DNA molecules and the protonated amine molecules in the thermally evaporated film and has been quantified using quartz crystal microgravimetry (QCM). Fluorescence studies …

Cationic Surfactant Mediated Hybridization And Hydrophobization Of Dna Molecules At The Liquid/Liquid Interface And Their Phase Transfer, Murali Sastry, Ashavani Kumar, Mrunalini Pattarkine, Vidya Ramakrishnan, Krishna N. Ganesh

Faculty Works

Hybridization of complementary oligonucleotides mediated by a cationic surfactant at the water/hexane interface leads to hydrophobic, double-helical DNA which may be readily phase transferred to the organic phase and cast into thin films on solid substrates.