Understanding individuals’ decisions about vaccination: a comparison between Expected Utility and Regret Theory models

This may be relevant to issues of drug adherence

By:	M Zia Sadique .John Edmunds,Nancy Devlin,David Parkin
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cty:dpaper:0503&r=cbe
This paper proposes two new theoretical models for examining individual decision-making regarding vaccination. In each case, individuals’ decisions are modelled as a binary choice (i.e. to accept or to reject an invitation to receive vaccination) which are a product both of the perceived risk of the preventable disease in question and of the perceived risk of adverse side effects of the vaccine itself. Individuals decisions are modelled in two ways – first, as expected utility maximising and second, as regret minimising – and the results compared. In both cases, the decision to vaccinate is explained by a threshold condition with respect to the risk of remaining exposed to the disease by rejecting vaccination, and the risk of experiencing adverse events from vaccination itself. Regret-averse individuals have a higher threshold – suggesting a lower propensity to vaccinate than that suggested by the expected! utility

NBER Paper on Incentivising Students

http://www.nber.org/papers/w12790

This paper examines experiments with scholarships and service provision to increase performance and retention in University.

Blogger Problems

The package that this blog runs off is a google product called Blogger and has been experiencing huge difficulties. This seems related to google's insistence that everyone who operates in this system have a gmail account. Perhaps there is a good reason for this but it really is unfair that the system seems to randomly take people off and damages the blog as part of this process. If you want to post and are having difficulties let me know.

Food Science and Saving Money are wastes of time

Two iconoclastic pieces from the NYT. The first argues that nutritional science has largely been a waste of time and the second looks at the counter-view to the notion that we should be getting people to save more.


MAGAZINE January 28, 2007 Unhappy Meals By MICHAEL POLLAN Thirty years of nutritional science has made Americans sicker, fatter and less well nourished. A plea for a return to plain old food.

BUSINESS January 27, 2007 Your Money: A Contrarian View: Save Less and Still Retire With Enough By DAMON DARLIN Some economists say that Americans could be saving less — and spending more — while they are younger

Neuroscientific Foundations for Price Elasticity of Demand (and Psychiatric Interventions for Financial Behaviour Problems)

Textbook expositions on the basics of microeconomic theory rely on assumptions about psychological motivation when explaining consumer behaviour. New research from Stanford University (published this month in the journal Neuron) points towards the possibility of neuroscientific foundations for all microeconomic theory, which would put economics on the road to being a much "harder" science. This month's discovery provides evidence on neural responses to price stimuli which means that we may soon have neuroscientific foundations for the theory on price elasticity of demand. Why don't we try to be the first to do this? And to write the new microeconomics textbooks aswell!

The Stanford research (for more details, see here) scanned consumers as they looked at desirable goods and their prices, and recorded the associated neural activity. (The experiment used an MRI scanner set up to detect brain activity). If the consumer wanted the product, a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens lit up. Then, when the price appeared, a high price activated our old friend, the insula, which seems to suggest that high prices result in consumer "product" craving, perhaps after the consumer has decided that the pleasure of acquisition was not worth the pain of paying for the product. If we set up an experiment where we could determine the position of insular activation on the price schedule for a particular product, then we would have evidence for the psychological motivation that drives observed patterns of consumer behaviour.

The Stanford researchers say that their study could reveal how credit cards 'trick' the brain into buying more. They wrote: "This finding has implications for understanding behavioural anomalies, such as consumers' growing tendency to overspend and under save when purchasing with credit cards rather than cash." One line of enquiry might be to examine the relationship between borrowing behaviour and the activation of the insula in the brain. This offers some potential for new insights in behavioural finance interventions, but as Kevin has said, there are some ethical issues associated with deliberate insula damage. However, this practice does exist; its referred to as "functional neurosurgery".

A more realistic (psychiatric) intervention for financial behaviour problems can be suggested on the basis of results from another recent study in Stanford University, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. For more details, see here. These researchers provide evidence which shows that the anti-depressant citalopram, available as Cipramil, reduces compulsive shopping tendencies in those affected by the disorder. Citalopram belongs to a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Further research is to be carried out by the Stanford team. Perhaps we should see if they would be interested in assessing the effect of SSRIs on compulsive borrowing behaviour?

Michal Myck

A reminder that Michal Myck from the DIW in Berlin will present his working paper in the Geary seminar room at 1pm this coming Tuesday (30th)

Wages and ageing: evidence from Britain and Germany

Neuroscientific evidence on smoking addiction

Smokers' weak point identified

Ian Sample, science correspondent,Friday January 26, 2007, The Guardian

A man who abruptly quit his 40-a-day smoking habit after suffering a stroke has helped neuroscientists pinpoint a coin-sized craving-centre in the brain.

The man, a long-term smoker, suffered stroke damage to a part of the brain called the insular, and quit, telling researchers his body "forgot the urge to smoke".

Nasir Naqvoi at the University of Iowa and Antoine Bechara at the brain and creativity institute at the University of Southern California have since identified other patients who quit smoking suddenly after experiencing similar brain damage.

The discovery gives neuroscientists fresh insight into the complex neurological circuitry of the addiction. While neurosurgeons are not about to tackle smoking addiction with a scalpel, it may give scientists clues for developing drugs to combat addicts' urges.

womb stress

Two recent studies have been heavily reported on by the BBC. The second one uses 9-11 as an instrument for womb stress. It is an interesting idea. The use of cortisol measures in these type of studies is fascinating.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6298909.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4508879.stm

Interventions in Food Risk Perception

Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan has rejected opposition calls for the introduction of a UK-style system of food labelling in Ireland.

A "traffic-light" system has been introduced in the UK to clearly show the levels of salt, fat and sugar in all food products.

However, the Minister is against the introduction of this system on the basis that dairy products would get red-light labelling despite their importance in the diets of young children. Other problems of a similar nature are also feared on the introduction of the system.

Why not introduce the "traffic-light" system for as many products as possible, avoiding products where a problem might occur? Seems like the best solution to me.

I wonder how long one would have to wait before evaluating this kind of an intervention? That issue aside, the evaluation of the intervention could be achieved by piolting the "traffic-light" system in one town, and launching a monitor of food risk perception in the same town.

Valuing Neuro-developmental outcomes

Harvard had a seminar a little while back on valuing the benefits from interventing to prevent illness associated with neural development. It is interesting to think about these types of ideas in the context of the memory improvement ideas we have been thinking and talking about in the last couple of weeks.

http://www.hcra.harvard.edu/sem_abstracts/sem57_abstract.pdf

Primary School children may soon self-report on their performance

A number of different report card templates, which have been developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), are being piloted in schools at the moment.
One of the cards provides for an input from pupils on what they are good at, or in what subject they would like to do better, and for a self-drawn picture reflecting him/herself as a learner.

See here for more details.

It could be time to contact the NCCA and see if we can help in the measurement of primary school children's self-reported performance. This is not as outlandish as it seems, though I don't know much about getting children to fill out surveys; maybe people from the human development project have read about this issue. Would the assessment of hypothetical scenarios would be too complex for these children?

Highly Geared Health Investments

American consumers are increasingly covering their medical costs through the use of credit card borrowing. Is this the alternative to universal health insurance?

Hospitals in Massachusetts are routinely asking patients to provide credit card information before they receive treatment.

And in states such as Texas and North Carolina, financial-services companies have joined with healthcare providers in an effort to promote the use of charge cards for medical expenses. For instance, Citibank's Citi Health Card is offered to patients through participating healthcare providers.

See more here.

Brain Briefings from SFN

Thanks to Kevin for pointing this out. The Society for Neuroscience issue regular briefings on how basic neuroscience translates in to clinical applications. Looks well worth a read

http://www.sfn.org/?pagename=brainBriefings_chrolongical

Altriusm and the Brain

A paper in Nature Neuroscience clams to have identified the region in the brain associated with altruism.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6278907.stm

David Madden Talk

Just a reminder that Prof. David Madden of the School of Economics in UCD will give a talk entitled "Body Mass Index and the Measurement of Obesity" in the seminar room of the Geary Institute at 1pm on Tuesday.

Full seminar lists for the 2007 behavioural series are available on the link below

behavioural series

Declining Life Expectancy in Russia

One of the most debated issues in health for the last few years is why population and life expectancy have been declining in Russia. Several papers have put this down to increasing cardiovascular disease associated with drastic societal transition.

An early JAMA article is available here

Becker and Posner discussed population-enhancing measures proposed by Putin in June. There is some good data on Russia including a very detailed household panel that Baltagi and others have worked on a lot

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2006/06/

Spam

The blog is starting to get spam on the comments section. I have restricted comments to members. Please let me know if you have a problem posting or putting up comments .

SES Health Gradient - US and UK

This paper is really worth looking at. New work that examines the SES/Health gradient at both sides of the Atlantic. In Geary, we have compiled (i think) every available data-set with health and socio-economic information for the Irish case. It would be really instructive to begin to compare our findings to those presented in this paper


http://ftp.iza.org/dp2539.pdf

More on Brain Training

Richard Roche gave a great talk in the Geary the other day on memory training and associated neurological changes. Further to Ken's posting, below is an NY Times article on this general area. It seems fairly clear that is possible to achieve statistically significant memory improvements in older people with associated improvements in measures of cell health.

What is less clear is the extent to which there are commercial and policy implications of these results,something that the NYT have covered very well in a number of articles about this. It would be interesting to see evidence (a) that these memory changes have significant effects on people's quality of life (b) that the effects are larger than could be achieved with other methods (c) that programmes to promote these effects are cost-effective from a commercial and policy-perspective and (d) whether these improvements have a role in preventing or delaying pathologies surrounding memory and the brain such as Alzheimers.


HEALTH December 27, 2006 As Minds Age, What’s Next? Brain Calisthenics By PAM BELLUCK Brain health programs are offering the possibility of a cognitive fountain of youth.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company Privacy Policy

Fallacies of Prostrate Cancer Treatment

A study from last year in the US shows that Prostate Cancer treatment decisions are often based on faulty information and information processing. The NY Times coverage is below. It would be interesting to discuss the range of potentially poor decisions around health that are made due to lack of information and misconception.


HEALTH July 4, 2006 Prostate Cancer Decisions Often Based on Fallacies By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Some common beliefs held by patients regarding treatment are based on misconceptions, a study found.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company Privacy Policy

Practical ways of improving memory

There was a good chat at Richard Roche's presentation on ageing and cognitive decline about the social cost of encouraging people to keep their memory capacities fresh. A straightforward article in The Psychologist, vol. 19, no. 10, pp. 608-611 (October 2006) outlines some comonsense ideas to boost memory that have been backed up by research. The e-copy can't be accessed through the libarary (there's a 6-month delay), but I have a hard copy if people are interested.

Negative internalities arising from non-market work in the home?

New research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health shows that women with higher levels of educational attainment are more likely to binge-drink in their early twenties, but stop thereafter. See the story "here".

However, women with lower levels of educational attainmet are more likely to binge-drink through their 40's. Less educated women having babies earlier is suggested as one reason to explain this trend.

Perhaps if a women has spent all her life looking after her children until her early 40's, she may be faced with a situation at that stage where she has no labour-market experience, while at the same time having lost all active involvement in the development of her children. Could boredom lead to bingeing?

Its certainly likely that college-educated women will never be as bored, as they will have much better career-options, and could even work right through their children's early childhood and school years through being able to afford child-care, baby-sitters etc.

If this all fits together, then there's a strong case to address the problem of negative internalities arising from non-market work in the home...

two minutes to midnight

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6270871.stm#map

For those of you familiar with the US Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, you will be heartened to know that they've put their clock forward to two minutes to midnight (midnight being the end of the world). They have maintained this clock since the 50s and it forms an interesting though crude backdrop for the risk perception work.

ernst fehr neuroeconomics

http://www.iew.unizh.ch/home/fehr/

Well worth reading many of the publications on Ernst Fehr's website. It includes a number of neuroeconomics pieces and a piece on the role of oxytocin in human trust and several works on fairness and incentives.

Freakonomics: review by Dinardo

There's an interesting, if long-winded, critique of Freakonomics by John Dinardo. A google search will easily find it, I think there may be a shorter published version. It raises interesting issues about doing popular treatments of economic research and highlights some of the pitfalls that await the scholar.Caveat author!

Article in Scientific American Mind

The latest Scientific American Mind has the article below which is quite interesting. Let me know if you want a look.

Is the Teen Brain Too Rational?
With the decision-making areas of their brains still developing, teenagers show poor judgment in risky situations. Thinking less logically may be the answer
By Valerie F. Reyna and Frank Farley

Shaked-Fehr Debate

This debate between Avner Shaked and Ernst Fehr and colleagues is worth reading for lots of reasons. Would be interested in what others think.

http://www.wiwi.uni-bonn.de/shaked/rhetoric/

genetic markers

http://www.nber.org/aginghealth/fall06/w12304.html

For almost all the empirical research we are conducting in the centre, the work discussed above in the recent NBER digest is worth examining. We have been debating the use of bio/genetic markers in our studies all throughout the year.

Non-Completion of PhD programs in Ireland

I was reading a paper on performance in economics graduate schools in the USA today, see Athey et al (2007).

One of its findings is that only 75 percent of enrollees completed their PhD degree in the top economics schools in the USA.

The new Geary Institute project examining "Fourth Level Ireland" will offer new and unprecedented insight into the issue of non-completion across MPhil and PhD courses in all subjects in Irish universities. This will be achieved through the tracking of post-graduate students in what might be the world's first "fourth level panel".

I've looked around to see if a panel study has been conducted on post-graduate students before, but can't find any indication that it has. Any further information on this would be appreciated. It could be the case that the Geary study on "Fourth Level Ireland" will offer ground-breaking information on the determinants of PhD student retention.

This is an extremely important issue (both in Ireland and abroad), given the large investments that are made in PhD training, particularly in the key areas of ICT, biotechnology and pharamaceuticals.

Brief Overview of PhD Proposal

If anyone has comments on this overview of my PhD proposal, I'd be interested to hear them. I put it together with the IRCHSS deadline (this Friday) in mind. But comments at any stage over the next while are welcome, as they would be useful.

Title: A Microeconomic Analysis of Ph.D. Outcomes: Returns to Education, Educational Mismatch and Satisfaction with Educational Attainment

The proposed research project will examine the returns to Irish Ph.D. education and the determinants of job mismatch for Ph.D. holders in the Republic of Ireland. The determinants of satisfaction with Ph.D. attainment will also be examined, in both Ireland and the USA.

The specific questions to be answered are:

(i) Is there job mismatch for Ph.D. holders in the Republic of Ireland? If so, what are the determinants of this mismatch?

(ii) What are the determinants of satisfaction with Ph.D. attainment in the Republic of Ireland?

(iii) How valuable were the individual returns to Ph.D. education in Ireland between 2001 and 2005? Did these returns offer a premium on "BA" and "MA" degrees?

(iv) What are the determinants of satisfaction with Ph.D. attainment in the USA?


(The full proposal is available on request).

Talk by Richard Roche, Thurs Jan 18

Just to remind people that Richard Roche, a neuropsychologist from NUI Maynooth, will be in Geary on Thursday morning to talk about his study on ageing and cognitive decline. This should be very interesting for anyone interested in SHARE, or for people who want to see how neuropsych experiments work in action. See a summary of Richard's paper below:

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/Geriatrics/tb/4599

Oster HIV Paper

This would be a good paper for the journal club

http://home.uchicago.edu/~eoster/aids.pdf

In general, there are some interesting papers on her site, relevant to AIDS and sexual behaviour in particular

http://home.uchicago.edu/~eoster/papers.html

nature neuroscience blog

http://blogs.nature.com/nn/actionpotential/

worth a look for those interested in neuroscience

Company Clinics

BUSINESS January 14, 2007 Company Clinics Cut Health Costs By MILT FREUDENHEIM Frustrated by health costs, large employers are adding primary care medical centers in their offices. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company Privacy Policy

I dont know about others in the group but for me there has to be greater demand for health in Ireland than the current system is supplying. The idea of company clinics is interesting. Peer Effects would also surely kick in if more people in the office started taking their check-ups etc.,. I wonder do IBEC and ISME have policies or plans with regard to using health benefits to attract and retain staff. Again, if you think of ideas such as cue-theory and other behavioural/psychological features of health it makes a lot of sense to bring health behaviours more in the fore-front.

The NY Times also featured some research recently on how pharmacists could play a greater role in "diabetes coaching" by providing guidance on self-care at the point of pharmaceuticals purchase. I know there are arguments about too much interference with people's lives, but these types of ideas are really worth debating in the context of the research here.

The Economics of Early Childhood Education

This post will be of interest to our friends in the Geary centre for Human Development and Public Policy.

The current issue of Economics of Eduation Review (link attached) is devoted to the issue of early childhood education.

There's actually something here for everyone, from how childhood interventions may conflict with welfare support programs, whether pre-school education should be financed by the state or the market, whether pre-school has educational benefits, whether pre-school affects cognitive and social development and whether peers have an influence on childhood skill development.

Why are there more women in college than men?

A new NBER paper tries to answer the above question for the US. They cite lots of reasons, most of which explain why female participation has increased including discrimination reduction, career expectations etc., Behavioural differences among teenagers were also a big factor with boys displaying far more "behavioural problems" and lower non-cognitive skills allowing girls to leap-frog in the race for college access. They note that female participation exceeds males in almost all OECD countries now. Interestingly, they argue that the gender ratio is returning to pre WW-II levels when more women attended college than men, for example large teacher training colleges for women.

http://www.nber.org/digest/jan07/w12139.html

Limiting Cues to Eat

The Cue Theory of Consumption is becoming more accepted in economics journals of late. Below is an analysis of eating cues and their relation to obesity thats currently on the RAND website.

http://www.rand.org/commentary/010707PPG.html

ugandan aids policy effectiveness

the success of AIDS reduction measures in Uganda is frequently mentioned in support of public education policies

bbc report here This gives links to the Science article that it is based on.

But there is nevertheless a vigorous debate which seems quite ideologically charged in relation to the question of abstinence as opposed to condom use

bbc report here

sunk cost fallacy

One of our group is obsessed with the sunk-cost falacy. He'll be glad to know that its also on the mind of one of the current front-runners for the US Presidency Barack Obama. See Levitt's blog for Jan 12th

http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/

Health Risk Behaviours in China

The rapid social change in China is seeing a raft of problems associated with Health Risk Behaviours. There have been several papers on HIV rates and the Lancet have just published a paper on syphillis.

bbc report here

Added to the this, the gender ratio is making life difficult for Chinese bachelors.

bbc report here

Im sure the above will probably generate some joky editorials but if ever a country was a good case study for the new well-being literature it is China. Huge growth, coupled with major social change and barriers to forming relationships.

John Knight, whose earlier paper on South Africa I posted has written a paper on some of this that is worth looking at

here

Why dithering gets you nowhere

Here's something for the delectation of the neuroeconomics crew, or even just for Ken in relation to his experimental endeavours.

Why dithering gets you nowhere

Trust your gut instincts when decision-making gets tough, a study published today suggests. The research, published in the journal Current Biology, shows that, in some cases, snap decisions are more reliable than endless pondering using higher-level cognitive processes. Participants were asked to pick the odd one out on a screen covered in more than 650 identical symbols, including one rotated version of the same symbol. They performed better when given no time to linger and were forced to rely on their subconscious. Dr Li Zhaoping, of University College London, said: "You would expect people to make more accurate decisions when given the time to look properly."

The Daily Telegraph (1oth January)

Why are women so pessimistic?

I have been using the SHARE data to measure the determinants of subjective life expectancy - the variable isn't ideal. One is simply asked the probability of surviving to a given target age which depends on one's age (70 if you are 60, 80 if you are 70 etc). I have used a few techniques like stochastic frontier estimation,quantile regression, it doesn't seem to matter.
So most of the effects make sense,if your folks are alive,you are not ill,or never smoked you expect to live longer etc. What is striking is the marginal effect of being female is worth about 6 months at most but we know women survive men by a few years on average so this is a puzzle.
Incidentally former smokers expect to live longer than those who never smoked!
Answers please on a post card.

Stata List

Well worth signing up to this if you use or are learning to use STATA

http://www.stata.com/statalist/

Wal-mart worker insurance

The type of stuff on the link below is a real goldmine for potential insights in behavioural economics. In this case, it is interesting to note the reaction of workers to changes in the price and availability of health insurance though I cant tell from the article whether other factors were at play or whether other mechanisms would have been more effective. The behavioural literature on saving is beginning to offer huge insights on these types of issues.

here

UCD's Claire Finn and Colm Harmon have written a paper on health insurance in Ireland emphasising its persistent and habitual character

here

Health Insurance in Ireland is currently in a turbulent state as the second largest provider BUPA has left the market

here

Other Blogs of Interest

The online Wall Street Journal mentioned some blogs of interest as "What the In-Crowd Knows." The Big Picture blog is considered one of the best for staying up to date for macroeconomics, and The Health Care Blog which as you can imagine, deals with health care. Also, if anyone is interested in Global Economics and Currencies, I suggest taking a look at A Roubini Global Economics Service blog.

Older Rural People and Drink Driving

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0109/pubs.html

A big issue in the Irish media at the moment is whether older people in rural areas should receive assistance in transporting back and forth from their local pub now that drink-driving laws are being enforced more stringently. Probably seems strange to many people but it generates strong emotions from all sides of the debate and there are interesting policy questions around alcohol, social capital, public finance etc,

Becker and Posner have a good discussion of drink-driving on their blog.

A bird'e eye view of econometrics

A link below to a paper overviewing econometrics by some senior figures. I link to another blog that has posted it. This blog is also worth a look

http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2006/11/econometrics.html

Why Hawks Win

Foreign Policy have an article by Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon on why hawks win - apparently people are overly optimistic and rarely take context into account when evaluating hostile acts.

The article is here.

Richard Disney - Consumer Credit Talk

A talk coming up at the IFS on whether the degree of over-indebtness in Britain is overstated.

http://www.ifs.org.uk/events.php?event_id=219

Ljennart Sjoberg in Stockholm does some really interesting work on households financial risk perceptions.

http://www.hhs.se/EFI/SecP/CFR

Measuring Cocaine Use in Ireland

Using drug residues on banknotes has become a way of estimating drug use. Although, according to the story below there is cocaine traces on all Irish banknotes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6250189.stm

WHO Policy on Not Recruiting Smokers

Id like to know what the Becker Posner Blog would make of this!

http://www.who.int/employment/FAQs_smoking_English.pdf

Book recommendation

I heard that this is very useful book: I think it is designed with American undergrads in mind.
Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstacy (Buzzed) by Cynthia Kuhn (Author)

Promising Economists and Their Research

The New York Times published an article today titled The Future of Economics Isn't So Dismal. The New York Times' David Leonhardt, who wrote the article, asked 20 senior economists from around the country at the American Economics Association annual meeting, "Who is the future of of economics?" 13 economists are named in the article, along with their field of work.

Other Good Blogs

The Mankiw Blog and the Brad de Long Blog are also very good.

Harvard Social Sciences Blog

Harvard have a really useful blog for quantitative social sciences

http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/

The Becker-Posner Blog is also good reading

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

Health Risk Behaviours

Would be grateful if people could post some material on health risk behaviours in developing countries

Interdisciplinary social science

I'm getting more interested in the idea of being a social scientist first and a 'disciplined' scholar second; this has always been at the back of my mind, but I've come across some nice statements by Richard Easterlin, for example, which express the reasoning far more eloquently than I ever could. While doing my PhD, I read (some of) Harold Wilensky's Rich Democracies, which does an admirable job of stitching together aggregate and individual data in a cross-national view. Have a look at the interview below, and in particulr, his account on Chicago:

http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Wilensky/wilensky-con0.html

Govt to conduct €24m study of children

Govt to conduct €24m study of children
January 10, 2007 11:09

The Government is to undertake the largest-ever study of Irish children, following their lives for seven years.
The €24m project, called Growing Up in Ireland, will track the progress of 8,000 nine-year-olds and 10,000 babies.
The ESRI and Trinity College, Dublin, will carry out the research, which aims to paint a picture of childhood in Ireland.
Information will be used to formulate child policy and provide services.
Children will be selected randomly through the national school system and the child benefit register.
Initially, a group of 8,000 nine-year-olds will be surveyed and they will be revisited when they are 13.
At the same time, information will be gathered on 10,000 babies who will be studied again when they are three years old.
Researchers will focus on the children's health, education, social development and family life. They will get information from the children themselves as well as parents and teachers.
The Minister for Children, Brian Lenihan, has urged all selected schools and families to take part in the work.
All the information gathered will be confidential.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0110/children

Hi all,

Re. FLIP - there's a study that has superficial similarities with FLIP; it's called the International Postgraduate Students' Mirror; Google this to get taken to the pdf.

Development and Well-Being

A good paper here on well-being in South Africa

http://129.3.20.41/eps/dev/papers/0409/0409067.pdf

The African literature is growing quite a lot. Afrobarometers now are being conducted all across Africa

www.afrobarometer.org

Merging this with the extensive macro-data available would be an interesting way to explore health and well-being in Africa

Behavioural Interventions

I agree with Martin - the Tesco idea is a great example of behavioural finance at work. I haven't read the details of the schemes but the basic idea seems similar to some of the work we have been looking at in the literature. A lot of the work in my PhD showed that people didn't really have a clue how much tax they were paying or what it was being spent on.

Health Insurance Experiment

The RAND Health Insurance Experiment is worth looking at:

http://www.rand.org/health/projects/hie/

Indeed, there are some great ideas in the RAND Health Website that should be debated here in Ireland

Comment on Liam's Post on Health Ins

Couldn't put this in as a comment on Liam's post about Schwarznegger's health insurance policy because I've signed into the new version of Blogger using my Gmail account.

There is a really interesting situation developing in America on this issue. The Californian trade unions came out against Arnie's proposal yesterday as they fear the financing of universal health insurance would effectively put more tax on the "middle class".

Have trade unions become a "middle class phenomenon"? Will universal health insurance dominate next year's election in the States?

I can't answer the first question, but in relation to the second, Senator Edward Kennedy is due to follow a similar suit on Schwarznegger's initiative today, by suggesting to the Senate Health Committee that they introduce FEDERAL universal health coverage. Now that's something.

What we know as economists is that those who don't have health insurance probably need it most. And that universal cover would probably see prices rise for everyone.

Finally, there are also parallels here with the "Automatic 401K" idea from the literature on behavioural interventions in finance. This idea suggests that employees should be automatically enrolled in pension plans, then given the "option to opt out" of the plan.

Why is there less paternalism with 401k's compared to the paternalism that is emerging on health insurance? It must be the case that the federal government can save some money by putting everyone on health insurance now (rather than paying medical bills that arise at some point in the future, for individuals that have no cover).

However, the federal government has no similar incentive to introduce universal 401K's. If people are on the breadline when they retire, then the federal government will pay the necessary bills at that future point in time. The notion of taking out an insurance policy to cover the risk of poverty in retirement is too absurd as poverty will occur with absolute certainty unless individuals make provisions for retirement from their current income.

Tesco to Move Into Health Insurance

Tesco plans to simplify things in the UK Health Insurance market by offering just TWO levels of cover. Sounds to me like they've been reading up on "behavioural interventions in finance". One of the suggestions from this literature is to offer less consumer choice in retirement planning, in the hope that consumers will better navigate a smaller choice-set, and as a result, actually settle on a pension product.


Tesco to move into health insurance
Wednesday, 10th January 2007 08.07am

Supermarket group Tesco is to begin selling private medical insurance policies in the UK, in its latest attempt to cash in on its dominance in the food retailing market, according to a report in The Independent.

The health insurance market, dominated by established firms such as Bupa and Standard Life - was worth 3.2bn in new premium income last year, according to the healthcare analyst Laing and Buisson.

But it has been criticised as expensive and difficult for consumers to understand, because the terms of policies vary so much, said the report.

The Independent cited a Tesco source, who claimed the supermarket group would simplify matters by offering just two levels of cover.

Its core policy will provide basic medical insurance, while the premium version will offer additional benefits, such as cover for certain out-patient treatments in hospitals, the paper said.

health care in california

Message from sender:
Schwarztnegger in California seems to be moving
toward a universal care package.
Interesting article.
NATIONAL January 9, 2007
California Plan for Health Care Would Cover All
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Eurostudent Survey

The Eurostudent Survey - a survey of the health and welfare of Irish college students is now live

www.eurostudent.ie

Survey Research As Reviewed by Matt Kuschel (Geary Intern)

I was able to locate four questionnaires dealing with alcohol use and other behaviour. They were the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol & Related Conditions, the National Longitudinal Surveys, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, and the Survey of Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Among Schoolchildren in England 2002. The studies focus on national trends of the United States of America, excepting the English study. There were a number of surveys for which data and/or method summaries were available, but not access to the questionnaire including National Alcohol Survey, Monitoring the Future, Christchurch Health and Development Study (New Zealand), and the Harvard College Alcohol Study. I could not find anything on the Approach and Avoidance of Alcohol Questionnaire. The studies have basic quantitative questions relating to how much is usually drunk. Except for the English study, they contain questions on five or more drinks in a few hours. Data is also collected about how old one was at the time of their first drink, excluding sips from another's drink. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism conducted the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). This is a very large survey as it samples 43,000+ American citizens aged 18 and older and has a length of 129 pages when converted to PDF format. It covers alcohol, tobacco, drug use, moods, general behaviour, and family history. In a departure from other surveys a significant amount of questions relate to experiences, especially when using or during withdraw of a substance. There is some focus on alcohol as the section is broken down between liquor, coolers, beer, wine, and the subject as a whole. Questions are largely based on a 12-month period. Basic questions amount of alcohol drank and binge-drinking patterns (5 or more drinks in a few hours) are included. Again, this survey goes beyond the numbers of drinks and asks questions relating to experiences while or after drinking. This includes social situations/locations while drinking, withdraw symptoms, efforts to quit, and questions about family experiences with alcohol. It is conducted via computer-assisted interviews. Some are personal interviews and others are telephone. A form of computer assistance is common for large surveys. The National Longitudinal Surveys are available concerning youth (NLSY) over two cohorts - 97 and 79. They have a question base much larger than the subjects of alcohol or drugs. Questions on Schooling, peers, use of time, employment, health, marriage, income, and others are included. A 427-page document may contain less than 20 questions relating to alcohol. These are good data sets, however, as a new wave is conducted each year. Thus, the NLSY for '79 has data on the cohort extending into the new millennium. NLSY79 interviews were carried out annually until 1994 when follow up interviews became biannual. The 12,686 strong participant cohort was aged 14-22 in 1979 and is nationally representative. The NLSY97 surveyed approximately 9,000 youths aged 12-16 by the last day of 1996. A parent questionnaire was also included in the first round allowing researchers to gather data on family history and household environment. Youth are followed up annually, but the parent survey was only administered with the first wave. The NLSY asks about behaviour in the last 30 days. Besides questions relating to amount and frequency of drinking, it also asks about drinking before work or school and tests knowledge on consequences of drinking. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) biannually samples a nationally representative cohort of 9 -12th grade students (approximately corresponding to post-junior leaving cert, but pre-leaving cert). In the 2003 survey 158 schools participated resulting in 15,214 usable questionnaires. The questionnaire is self-administered and given in the classroom. It is short (87 questions over 21 pages) in comparison to the other surveys here. A multitude of subjects is covered including health, safety at school, depression, sexual activity, tobacco, alcohol, diet, exercise, and marijuana use. Most of the questions ask respondents to list activity over the last 30 days with depression/suicide and fights taking a time horizon of 12 months. The National Centre for Social Research and the National Foundation for Educational Research conducted the Survey of Smoking, Drinking, and Drug Use Among Schoolchildren in England 2002. This self-administered survey gathered data from pupils aged generally 11 to 15 from 321 schools resulting in 9,859 answered questionnaires. It covers the topics of cigarettes, alcohol, and illegal drugs in 148 questions. Using a slightly different format, it has some basic graphics to represent pints, half pints, large cans, etc. and also uses a tick box design. Cigarette questions are limited, but do ask about family feelings toward the participant's smoking habits and also how they purchase their cigarettes. Alcohol and illegal drugs are broken down into a number of different categories. There are 6 categories for alcohol plus a section to write in anything unmentioned. Each category asks for the amount drank in the last seven days. Illegal drugs are split into 14 categories plus a write in section. Each category asks if one has heard of the drug, been offered the drug, tried the drug, how old one was when one first tried the drug, when one last used the drug, and, if applicable, how one takes the drug.

Useful websites for survey links and downloads:

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Bureau of Labor Statistics National Longitudinal Surveys

National Longitudinal Surveys Investigator

National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Health Youth!

Eurostudent Survey is now live

http://geary.ucd.ie/eurostudent/

 

 

The web address is above

 

Junk Food: A little less of what you fancy

Regulating unhealthy foods is tough; defining them is even tougher

A Little Less of what You Fancy

This was an interesting article in The Economist.
Jan 4th 2007.

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Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

yeah right.

test

I can't promise I'll try to send a mail, but I'll try to try.

f

testing

Just checking out how to use this thing. Looks like you have to log in to blogger.com to create a new post. Will send a mail later on with details of how to just email the blog

No. 1

Am i the first to post a message?Happynew year folks!
kevin