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Steven
Raphael, PhD — Assoc Prof of Public
Policy, Goldman School of Public Policy
February 14, 2006
Dr. Raphael and his colleagues have investigated the potential connection between incarceration dynamics and AIDS infection rates, with a particular emphasis on the black-white AIDS rate disparity. Using case-level data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they constructed a conforming panel of male and female incarceration rates to model the dynamic relationship between the male and female AIDS infection rates and the proportion of men in the age/region/race-matched cohort that are incarcerated. They found that the higher incarceration rates among black males over this period explain the large share of the racial disparity in AIDS infection between black women and women of other racial and ethnic groups. Paper
Doug Oman, PhD — Assistant Adjunct Professor, School of Public Health
February 28, 2006
After briefly sketching the field's historical background and major recent findings, Dr. Oman will describe some of his own work from the emerging field of the scientific study of the health implications of spirituality and religion. This includes theoretical papers, a 31-year epidemiologic study using Alameda County Study data, and recent interventions using a nonsectarian meditation-based spiritual toolkit. These randomized trials demonstrate large reductions in stress among health professionals, and reductions in stress and increases in forgiveness among college undergraduates.
John Hsu, MD, MBA MSCE — Physician Scientist, Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California
March 14, 2006
Health information technology (HIT) has great potential to improve health care; however, there is limited information about HIT effects on clinical care, especially with respect to commercially-available technology in community-based, ambulatory clinics. In the IMPACT study, we are evaluating the effects of ambulatory care HIT on quality, safety, and resource use between 2004–2007, using a quasi-experimental pre-post design with concurrent controls, within a Kaiser Permanente integrated health delivery system (IDS). In this natural experiment, the staggered HIT implementation across 110 primary care teams will occur during 2005-7. This new HIT will include an electronic medical record and order-entry system, decision-support, and a patient web-portal in an integrated, commercial product.
Thomas Rice, PhD — Professor and Vice-Chair of the Department of Health Services, UCLA
April 11, 2006
Is more choice better in health care? This presentation posits that in the case for health insurance for seniors, it may not be — using Medicare's new drug benefit as an example. The paper reviews previous evidence on seniors and decision making, applies it to Medicare, and suggests ways in which policy makers may improve the well-being of seniors by limiting choice. Paper
Tor Iversen, PhD — Professor in Health Economics, University of Oslo, Norway
April 25, 2006
Dr. Iversen's group modeled optimal practice profiles of Norwegian general practice (GP) physicians contingent on the presences/absence of patient shortages. They found that a patient shortage has a positive effect on a GP's intensity of service provision, and thus on the income per listed person. These results were valid when possible selection bias was accounted for, although the magnitude of some of the effects was then somewhat smaller. Dr. Iversen's group believes that their study demonstrates the classical trade-off between selection and inefficiency in health care, with the cost of avoiding patient selection to be roughly 1.2% of total fee-for-service paid by the National Insurance.
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