Download or read book Essays on Human Health and Economics of Diseases written by Boris Houenou and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is an essay on investments in human health, disease control and impacts of disease shocks on economy. In the first chapter, we revisit the causal relationship between parental income and children's diseases symptoms, examining the attenuating role of child nutrition and household sanitation. We employ panel data from the population morbidity surveillance and socio-economic survey in Asembo, Kenya. We specify linear and nonlinear models, correct for sample selection and endogeneity of parental income with children' diseases symptoms and perform a mediation analysis. Lower-income children have a higher number of reported symptoms, and child nutrition and household sanitation attenuate the causal relationship between parental income and children's health in a context where communicable diseases make a substantial share of diseases burden. The second chapter proposes a Bayesian approach to systematically estimate the economic impacts of diseases shocks. The approach is illustrated with the US meat industry shocked by Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), Rift Valley Fever (RVF), and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). Farm supply shock harms the most the industry. BSE has the most significant adverse aggregate effects on the beef sector and the industry. Farmers are the most affected for BSE and RVF while for HPAI wholesalers incur the most substantial impact. Consumers are mostly worst off under the scenario analysis, but the distribution differs per affected commodities. Their welfare change under the sensitivity analysis depends on the affected sector. We find that a non-informative prior is a proxy to a medium outbreak while categorizing shocks based on their distributional moments provides detailed outcomes and improves estimation of impacts. The third chapter endogenizes Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) incidence on economy allowing a two-way interaction between the economy and the disease dynamics to study health investment, disease control and learning associated with it. We show that the change in the steady state of economic variables is non-linear and can be non-monotonic. Disease control, and health capital investment increase with a decreasing discount rate as does the output share of disease, although non-monotonically. While the disease-free steady state is parameter-free, a parameter-dependent steady state emerges from the endemic problem.

Download or read book Medicine and Social Justice written by Rosamond Rhodes Ph.D and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2002-08-29 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because medicine can preserve and restore health and function, it has been widely acknowledged as a basic good that a just society should provide its members. Yet there is wide disagreement over the scope of what is to be provided, to whom, how, when and why. In this uniquely comprehensive book some of the best-known philosophers, doctors, lawyers, political scientists, and economists writing on the subject discuss the concerns and deepen our understanding of the theoretical and practical issues that run through the contemporary debate. The first section lays a broad theoretical basis for understanding the concept of justice, particularly as it relates to the distribution of health care. The second section critically examines how medical care is distributed in different countries around the world and the particular advantages and injustices associated with those systems. The third section draws attention to the special needs of different social groups and the specific issues of justice that are raised by the impact of various policies on health care distribution. The concluding section delves intothe dilemmas that confront those designing health care systems--the politics, the priorities, and the place of desires as opposed to needs in a socially just scheme.

Download or read book Essays in the Economics of Health and Medical Care written by Victor R. Fuchs and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays in the Economics of Health written by Achintya Ray and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays in Political Economy and Health Economics written by Raphael Godefroy and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on Health Economics written by Mojisola O. A. Tayo and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three essays examining topics in health economics. The first essay examines the impact of education on 10-year mortality rates of minorities in the United States. I use the states' compulsory education laws to instrument the level of education in my cohort study of the effect of education on the mortality rates of minority groups (Blacks, Asians and Hispanics) born in the early twentieth century. I find that an increase in years of education significantly decreases the mortality rates for the White and Black populations, but not for the Asian and Hispanic populations. The second essay explores the effect of education on adult self-reported health (SRH), health behaviors (smoking, seatbelt use, and exercise), and health outcomes (body mass index (BMI), hypertension, and heart attack) by race and ethnicity using Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data from 2001-2011. I find racial and ethnic disparities in the education gradient on SRH that remain significant after controlling for income and other economic factors. I explore the pathway through which education influences health using three different econometric methods to estimate a causal effect. I find that education directly affects health behaviors and that health behaviors directly affect health outcomes including SRH, leading to an indirect impact of education on SRH. My third essay is written in collaboration with my adviser, Dr. Virginia Wilcox-Gok. We use the National Comorbidity Survey Baseline (NCS-1) dataset from 1990-1992 and O*NET (Occupational Information Network) to explore whether individuals diagnosed with depression before age 22 self-select as adults into occupations that accommodate their depressive disorders. Depressive disorder is a health problem that can start very early on in life, so it often limits educational attainment and adult earning. It is also a disorder that can be helped if diagnosed early. Because individuals with chronic depression may need more flexibility and less stress in the workplace to cope with their disorder, their adult occupational choice may depend on how accommodating the occupation's characteristics are to this disorder. We find that women with early-onset depressive disorder are more likely to be employed full time than men, while both men and women are likely to choose self-employment. Men with more frequent depressive episodes are less likely than women to choose occupations requiring higher levels of education, experience, and training. In contrast, women with early onset depressive disorder are more likely than men to take jobs in the service sector.

Download or read book Three Essays on Health Economics written by Keisha T. Solomon and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My dissertation covers three loosely related topics in health and education economics that focus on examining factors that may affect children's and young adults' health capital and human capital accumulation. The first essay examines the effect of state-level full parity mental illness law implementation on mental illness among college-aged individuals and human capital accumulation in college. It is important to consider spill-overs to these educational outcomes, as previous research shows that mental illness impedes college performance. I utilize administrative data on completed suicides and grade point average, and survey data on reported mental illness days and decision to drop-out of college between 1998 and 2008 in differences-in-differences (DD) analysis to uncover causal effects of state-level parity laws. Following the passage of a state-level full parity law, I find that the suicide rate reduces, the propensity to report any poor mental health day reduces, college GPA increases, and the propensity to drop out of college does not change. The second essay investigates the effects of family size on child health. This essay is a joint study with Kabir Dasgupta. In this study, we use matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Surveys to study the effects of family size on child health. Focusing on excess body weight indicators as children's health outcome of interest, we examine the effects of exogenous variations in family size generated by twin births and parental preference for mixed sex composition of their children. We find no significant empirical support in favor of the quantity-quality trade-off theory in instrumental variable regression analysis. This result is further substantiated when we make use of the panel aspects of the data to study child health outcomes of arrival of younger siblings at later parities. The third essay estimates the causal effect of being born out of wedlock on a child's health outcome and early academic achievements. Specifically, the study uses rich panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the Children of the NLSY79 (NLSY79-child), coupled with a sibling fixed-effects model to address omitted variable bias attributable to unobserved family characteristics. The study findings suggest that the results from the OLS models have been driven by unobserved family effects, because the significance of the results disappear for the sibling fixed-effects models. Also, due to the large confidence intervals, and the signs changing for some of the regression coefficients, I cannot conclusively state whether being born to a married mother has no significant impact on children's health and education.

Download or read book Essays on Development and Health Economics written by Jianan Yang and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is a collection of three essays on development and health economics. In the first essay, we studied two interventions that provide patients with information on antibiotic resistance through text messages in Beijing, China. The "self-health" intervention emphasizes the threat to one's own health and is found to have negligible effects. In contrast, the "social-health" intervention highlighting the threat to society reduces antibiotic purchases by 17% without discouraging healthcare visits and other medicine purchases. Survey evidence suggests the perceived severity being a potential explanation. The messages were sent once every month for five months, and a gradual decrease in the effect size is observed over time. The second essay evaluated the affordability and overuse trade-off in pharmaceutical pricing by studying a drug procurement program in China, which brought down the prices of 10 chronic condition drugs by an average of 78%. Using a difference-in-differences design with a set of comparable drugs as controls, we find that this improvement in affordability led to a significant increase in demand by uninsured patients, whose purchases of treated drugs increased by 28.4% more than the insured. This demand response came both from new and existing medication takers. Drug adherence was improved for the uninsured who had poorer adherence at baseline but overuse was not affected. The third essay proposes two experiments related to low disease awareness, treatment take-up, and adherence in developing countries. Because of lacking access to primary care services, chronic condition awareness in developing countries is usually low. The first experiment proposes to provide people in low-income areas with physical exams and health reports to examine whether raising disease awareness could increase control. The second experiment proposes to provide patients with information on the expected benefit from treatment including the expected reduction in risk if their condition is under control, and the cost of a major health event. This experiment is designed to test the hypothesis that misperception of treatment benefits is one of the underlying causes for low take-up and adherence rates conditional on disease awareness in developing countries.

Download or read book Three Essays in Health Economics written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intersection of health, inequality, and human capital is the source of some of the large and complex problems that continue to challenge our health care system and our health policy decision makers. My study touches on two areas at this nexus: socioeconomic determinants of health/development and economic costs (e.g., human capital, labor market) of chronic illness and disability. The first chapter examines the labor market outcomes of women co-residing with a disabled parent or parent-in-law. Because the vast majority of women providing this form of eldercare are still in their working years, informal care responsibilities may involve considerable opportunity costs. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I construct a longitudinal dataset documenting the labor market and co-residential eldercare experiences of sample women over 25 years. On average, I find that women co-residing with a disabled elder are less likely to engage in labor market work. However, responses vary over the life course. Co-residence prior to age 40 is associated with a 9 percentage point reduction in the likelihood of employment, an effect size twice that found for women over 50. The second chapter examines how poverty may affect brain structure and development. Little is known about how poverty is translated into deficits in cognition and achievement. Using a sample of children and adolescents (4 to 22 years) from the NIH Pediatric MRI Data Repository, we consider a potential neurobiological channel. We find that children from poor households display a maturational lag. Moreover, this atypical development is reflected in standardized assessments of academic ability and achievement. The third chapter examines the influence of sibling chronic illness or disability on children's early educational outcomes. Using a sample of sibling pairs from the PSID Child Development Supplement, we consider several categories of common childhood disabilities to explore whether and to what extent sibling health spillovers may vary according to the domain or severity of sibling impairment. We find evidence of substantial and heterogeneous effects of poor childhood health on well-sibling outcomes. Estimated spillovers in the case of developmental disabilities, in particular, are large and robust across a series of sensitivity analyses.

Download or read book Essays on the Economic Impacts of Emerging Infectious Diseases written by Jamison Pike and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDs) pose a significant threat on both human health and global economies. Emerging infections can be defined as "infections that have newly appeared in a population or have existed previously but are rapidly increasing in incidence or geographic range." (Morens et al., 2004). Nearly half of all human infectious diseases known today can be classified as emerging. "The number of EID events caused by pathogens originating in wildlife has increased significantly with time." (Jones et al., 2008). According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over time these newly recognized pathogens are emerging at alarming rates. With a rapidly increasing risk of the incidence of a disease comes the potential for a pandemic outbreak, where the disease spreads globally throughout the population. "The impact of pandemic influenza is substantial in terms of morbidity, mortality and economic cost and there is the potential for serious social disruption." (Gust et al., 2001). The CDC reported in their FY2011 Justification of Estimates for Appropriation Committees that annually infectious diseases (primarily zoonoses) claim more than 15 million lives and cause substantial morbidity worldwide. Consequently, there are economic damages associated with the rising trend in zoonoses, such as loss of GDP due to decline of production, decline of travel, decline of face-to-face service, and loss of labor force, and healthcare costs. "Over an expected period of two years, between 15% and 35% of the U.S. population could be affected by an influenza pandemic [medium-level], and the economic impact could range between $71.3 and $166.5 billion. This effect does not include members of the general population that may have to miss work to care for ill family members, potentially raising the population affected by an influenza pandemic to 55% during the peak weeks of community outbreak." (US CDCP, 2006). In McKibbon and Sidorenko's 2006 Computable General Equilibrium based study, they estimated a mild influenza outbreak scenario to "reduce total [global] output by nearly one percent, or approximately $330 billion in the first year." These facts illustrate the need for research on the economic impact of emerging infectious diseases. Specifically, I examine the economics of mitigation and adaptation on EIDs. Mitigation in this context can be defined as actions society takes to prevent a disease outbreak from occurring, such as surveillance. When society mitigates, they are self-protecting. While adaptation is defined as actions individuals take once an outbreak occurs, such as reacting to an outbreak by vaccinating. Adaptation entails actions of self-insurance. The following three essays demonstrate the idiosyncrasies of EID impacts through three different scopes. Each essay requires examining the problem at a different scale. The first essay is an application of the optimal stopping model to emerging infectious diseases and policies to prevent and control EID outbreaks. EIDs are examined at a broad policy level. The second essay is a game theory model developed to determine optimal strategies for investing in and subsidizing pandemic vaccine research and development between the pharmaceutical industry and the government. EIDs are examined from the industry and regulator perspective. The final essay is a valuation model that utilizes a stated preference approach to assess the value of avoiding a pandemic outbreak while considering the externalities associated with this value and considering individual's risk preferences in terms of a pandemic outbreak. EIDs are examined from the individual perspective.

Download or read book Essays in Health Economics written by Anna Elizabeth Hill and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My first essay examines the relationship between medical innovation and moral hazard. I examine the behavioral response to one recent medical innovation: the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. I use both medical claims and survey data to observe a comprehensive set of variables indicating risky behavior. I use instrumental variables and regression discontinuity designs to account for selection into vaccination and to determine the causal effect of receiving the vaccine on behavior and I find evidence of heterogeneous treatment effects. Results indicate that receiving the vaccine leads to moral hazard in low income adolescents; however the vaccine leads to a reduction in risky behavior in the overall population. My second essay is joint work with John Cawley. We use the American Time Use Survey to examine socioeconomic differences in waiting times. Socioeconomic characteristics are correlated with waiting time for medical care. Low income and publicly insured individuals wait longer than higher income groups and those with private coverage. It could be that lower income respondents are getting care without an appointment or that they experience a lower opportunity cost of time than high income respondents and are therefore showing up earlier to appointments. My third essay is also joint work with John Cawley, we examine the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and health. The majority of previous work on the relationship between economic conditions and health focuses on three categories of outcomes: mortality, health and wellbeing measures and health behaviors. We contribute to the large body of empirical work on the relationship between iii macroeconomic conditions and health by examining a range of behaviors via the American Time Use Survey that provide evidence about both the local labor market effect on the opportunity cost of time-intensive health investments. These health-related behaviors provide evidence about the mechanisms driving the relationship between the macroeconomy and health outcomes. We find that time spent in transit is reduced when the local unemployment rate increases and time spent sleeping increases. We also find mixed evidence on diet and exercise-related activities as well as risky behaviors. iv.

Download or read book Essays in Health Economics written by Stephanie Khoury and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is a collection of three essays in health economics. Chapters 1 and 2 study the effects of public health policy interventions, while chapter 3 studies health outcomes directly. Chapter 1 examines how vaccination behavior and vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks change in response to two mandatory vaccination policy changes in California. Passed as a response to an increase in parental vaccine refusal, the two policies aim to first limit and then fully eliminate personal belief exemptions (PBEs). I find that PBE rates decrease and up-to-date vaccination rates increase after each law is implemented. Furthermore, after fully eliminating PBEs, I find that medical exemptions increase at a faster rate in schools with historically high personal belief exemptions, potentially keeping clusters of children unvaccinated and at risk. Finally, I do not find evidence that either policy decreases outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases at the county level over the study period. Chapter 2 studies the causal effects of bonus payments provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) through federally designated Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) on physician location decisions. We find suggestive evidence that counties designated as HPSAs experience an increase in the number of early-career primary care physicians, many of whom are likely making initial location decisions, driven entirely by physicians who attended ranked medical schools. However, we find no evidence that HPSA designation induces physicians in later career stages to relocate to shortage areas. Chapter 3 focuses on the recent refugee crisis, which has particularly affected countries in Europe. Specifically, we study how the recent refugee migration into Europe affects the mental health of the host country citizens in Switzerland and Germany, exploiting population-only based asylum seeker allocation rules for placement into cantons and counties, respectively. We utilize both administrative health insurance data and survey data. Despite the concerns and fears that have been sparked by the asylum seeker influx, overall, we find no economically significant effects on mental health in either country.

Download or read book Essays in Health Economics and Health Policy written by Eun Young Kim and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is a compilation of three essays. The first essay critiques a recent paper by Wilper et al. (2009) for its inappropriate model calibration in analyzing the association of health insurance and mortality. Using the individual-level data from a nationwide survey with more recent mortality follow-up information, it shows that the privately-insured do not significantly fare better in mortality risk compared to the uninsured. Moreover, hazard ratio estimate for the Medicaid suggests that public provision of insurance increases mortality. The second essay addresses the role of income in explaining the differential public health outcomes across developed countries. Noting that the growing arguments for socioeconomic gradient in health are based mostly on cross-sectional studies, panel analyses of five different public health outcomes are conducted. Results demonstrate that economic development remains critical in explaining health improvements at the aggregate level. The third essay analyzes the association of income and health care spending at the aggregate level. Using a large panel data from 24 industrialized nations for more than three decades, the close relationship between income and health care spending is established. In contrast to earlier cross-sectional studies, the panel analysis suggests that health expenditure growth is not as rapid as income growth in almost all nations.

Download or read book Infectious Diseases in the New Millennium written by Mark Eccleston-Turner and published by Springer. This book was released on 2020-05-16 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the often tough questions raised by infectious diseases through essays that explore a host of legal and ethical issues. The authors also offer potential solutions in order to ensure that past errors are not repeated in response to future outbreaks. The essays touch on a number of key themes, including institutional competence, the accountability and responsibility of non-state actors, the importance of pharmaceuticals, and the move towards a rights-based approach in global health. Readers gain insights into such important questions as follows: How can we help victims in other countries? What (if any) responsibility should be placed upon international organizations whose actions exacerbate infectious diseases? How can we ensure that pharmaceutical research helps all communities, even those who cannot afford to pay for the products? While broadly covering global health law, the book adopts an inter-disciplinary approach that draws on public international law, philosophy, international relations, human rights law, and healthcare economics. As such, it is a valuable resource for academic libraries, appealing to scholars and postgraduates engaged in relevant research, as well as to those engaged with global health and policy at the international level.

Download or read book Essays in Health Economics written by Yuriy Pylypchuk and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay III. Does participation in the food stamp program affect the incidence of obesity? I investigate the impact of participation in the FSP on adult obesity for a low income population using the 2000--2003 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). I implement two estimators to test for sensitivity of results. First, I estimate bivariate models which account for unobservables that vary over time and that are time invariant. Second, I implement propensity score matching methods. The results from both techniques suggest small and positive effect of Food Stamps Program on obesity among women. The study finds no consistent relationship between Food Stamps Participation and weight status among men.

Download or read book Diagnostic and Therapeutic Odyssey written by Setti Raïs Ali and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation emphasizes the challenges raised by the management of rare diseases and is structured around three key actors of the diagnostic and therapeutic “odyssey” of patients with rare diseases. Part I is devoted to patients and their social networks. Chapter 1 considers demand-side sources of delay in receiving a diagnosis; Chapter 2 explores the health spillover effects from patients' health to their direct support structure. Part II considers pharmaceutical firms and examines how firms' decisions to allocate R&D investment to rare diseases are impacted by innovation policies in rare arenas. Chapter 3 evaluates the causal impact of the EU Orphan Drug policy on R&D efforts in orphan drugs, while Chapter 4 investigates the inequality in allocation of R&D investment within rare diseases. Part III focuses on policymakers and addresses the issues in measuring pharmaceutical innovation benefits along with costs in rare disease arenas, while considering the opportunity cost of healthcare expenditures. Chapter 5 measures the causal impact of pharmaceutical innovation in rare diseases on longevity, while Chapter 6 is a critical discussion of decision-making tools for rational allocation of healthcare resources, and the use of a cost-effectiveness threshold.

Download or read book Essays on the Regulation of Health Care Provision and the Economics of Chronic Diseases written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: