Publications

The adjusted mortality for care teams with anesthesiologist assistants was 1.6% (95% CI, 1.4 to 1.8) versus 1.7% for care teams with nurse anesthetists (95% CI, 1.7 to 1.7; difference −0.08; 95% CI, −0.3 to 0.1; P = 0.47). Compared to care teams with nurse anesthetists, care teams with anesthesiologist assistants were associated with non–statistically significant decreases in length of stay (−0.009 days; 95% CI, −0.1 to 0.1; P = 0.89) and medical spending (−$56; 95% CI, −334 to 223; P = 0.70).

The standard of care treatment for maximally resected, high risk (≥ 40 years old or sub-totally resected) low grade glioma (LGG) patients was established by RTOG 9802, which showed an overall survival (OS) of 13.3 years for patients treated with radiotherapy (RT) + PCV (procarbazine, lomustine [CCNU], vincristine) chemotherapy compared to 7.8 years for RT alone. In the era of value-based health care, cost-effectiveness analyses (CEA) have the potential to inform coverage decisions and patient care.

The decreasing effectiveness of antimicrobial agents is a global public health threat, yet risk factors for community-acquired antimicrobial resistance (CA-AMR) in low-income settings have not been clearly elucidated. Our aim was to identify risk factors for CA-AMR with extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)–producing organisms among urban-dwelling women in India. We collected microbiological and survey data in an observational study of primigravidae women in a public hospital in Hyderabad, India.

In this study published in the American Journal of Managed Care, the authors found that premiums for ACA Marketplace plans were higher in rating areas in which physician, hospital, and insurance markets were less competitive.

Poor air quality is thought to be an important mortality risk factor globally, but there is little direct evidence from the developing world on how mortality risk varies with changing exposure to ambient particulate matter. Current global estimates apply exposure-response relationships that have been derived mostly from wealthy, mid-latitude countries to spatial population data, and these estimates remain unvalidated across large portions of the globe.

Abstract: Learning on the job creates a tradeoff in team decisions: Workers with less knowledge have less to contribute to team decisions, but experiential learning may require that trainees also have a stake in decisions to learn. This paper studies learning and influence in team decisions among physicians trainees. Exploiting a discontinuity in relative experience, I find reduced-form evidence of influence due to seniority between trainees.

Abstract: In setting prices for physician services, Medicare solicits input from a committee that evaluates proposals from industry. We investigate whether this arrangement leads to prices biased toward the interests of committee members. We find that increasing a measure of affiliation between the committee and proposers by one standard deviation increases prices by 10%, demonstrating a pathway for regulatory capture. We then evaluate the effect of affiliation on the quality of information used in price-setting.

The recent challenges to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has increased the number of individuals with health insurance in the United States but has had little effect on cost, has revived the debate about a single-payer health care system.

The opioid epidemic has claimed more than 300,000 lives in the United States since 20001

There is longstanding debate about the contribution of family planning programs to fertility decline. Studying the staggered introduction of family planning across Malaysia during the 1960s and 1970s, we find modest responses in fertility behavior. Higher (but not lower) parity birth hazards declined by one-quarter—but imply only a 5 percent decline in the overall annual probability of birth. Age at marriage rose by 0.48 years, but birth spacing conditional on this did not otherwise change.

We study how exposure to extreme temperatures in early periods of child development is related to adult economic outcomes measured 30 y later. Our analysis uses administrative earnings records for over 12 million individuals born in the United States between 1969 and 1977, linked to fine-scale, daily weather data and location and date of birth.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has increased the number of Americans with health insurance. Yet many policy makers and consumers have questioned the value of Marketplace plan coverage because of the generally high levels of cost sharing. We simulated out-of-pocket spending for bronze, silver, or gold Marketplace plans (those having actuarial values of 60 percent, 70 percent, and 80 percent, respectively).

Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors substantially reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, but it is presently unclear whether they also reduce mortality. The list prices of PCSK9 inhibitors in the United States (>$14,500 per year) are >100× higher than generic statins, and only a small fraction of their higher cost is likely to be recovered by prevention of cardiovascular events.

From federal reforms to hospital management, the road to better and more cost-effective healthcare is paved with difficult questions: How do we reduce wait times? How can we prevent as many deaths as possible with a limited budget? How many vaccines should we order for this emerging epidemic?

Objective

To determine whether the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which addresses food insecurity, can reduce health care expenditures.

To systematically review and meta-analyze evidence of nonpharmacological interventions for postoperative pain management after total knee arthroplasty.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of objective isolation and loneliness on Medicare spending and outcomes. Method: We linked Health and Retirement Study data to Medicare claims to analyze objective isolation (scaled composite of

This paper studies how in utero exposure to maternal stress from family ruptures affects later mental health. We find that prenatal exposure to the death of a maternal relative increases take-up of ADHD medications during childhood and anti-anxiety and depression medications in adulthood. Further, family ruptures during pregnancy depress birth outcomes and raise the risk of perinatal complications necessitating hospitalization. Our results suggest large welfare gains from preventing fetal stress from family ruptures and possibly from economically induced stressors such as unemployment.

For forty years, the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male passively monitored hundreds of adult black males with syphilis despite the availability of effective treatment.

Achieving gender equality in education is an important development goal.  We tested the hypothesis that the gender gap in adolescent education is accentuated by illnesses among young children in the household.