Resources Repository
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ReviewPublication 2016Remembering Howard Raiffa
Howard Raiffa (1924-2016) had a profound influence on all aspects of the decision sciences and on …
Howard Raiffa (1924-2016) had a profound influence on all aspects of the decision sciences and on the fields of systems analysis and operations research. He guided the introduction of the decision sciences into numerous fields such as business, medicine, public health, the environmental sciences, and law, and was instrumental in building world-recognized institutions such as the Kennedy School at Harvard and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis near Vienna, Austria. This article is a thoughtful tribute by…
Preferences/Values | Decision Theory | North America | Decision Analysis | Operations Research | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Military/Defense -
ArticlePublication 2022Vaccinations versus Lockdowns to Prevent COVID-19 Mortality
This analysis estimated the costs associated with preventing Covid-19 deaths by vaccinations versus lockdowns. Publicly …
This analysis estimated the costs associated with preventing Covid-19 deaths by vaccinations versus lockdowns. Publicly available datasets from the Israeli Ministry of Health were used to model the parameters of the pandemic in Israel. The Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker was used for quantitative data on government policies. Data on the Israeli economy were taken from the Central Bureau of Statistics. The models demonstrate that the first lockdown prevented 1022 COVID-19 deaths at the cost…
Decision Theory | Middle East & North Africa | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | State-Transition | Decision Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Health/Medicine -
ArticlePublication 2022Health Utility of Drinkers' Family Members
Problematic alcohol use is known to harm individuals surrounding the drinker. This study described the …
Problematic alcohol use is known to harm individuals surrounding the drinker. This study described the health utility of people who reported having a family member(s) whom they perceived as a “problem drinker.” Using a US population dataset, and adjusting for other drinking-related factors, perceiving a family member as a problem drinker was associated with lower health utility on the order of 0.033 (P < 0.001) for a spouse/partner to 0.023 (P < 0.001) for a…
Preferences/Values | North America | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Chronic Disease/Risk -
ReportPublication 2021Valuing COVID-19 Mortality and Morbidity Risks
In this report, the researchers develop an approach for valuing COVID-19 mortality and morbidity risk …
In this report, the researchers develop an approach for valuing COVID-19 mortality and morbidity risk reductions that builds on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Guidelines for Regulatory Impact Analysis. They review the differences between COVID-19 mortality risks and the types of risks that are more commonly studied, and find that the impacts of these differences on the value of mortality risk reductions (the value per statistical life, VSL) are uncertain. They…
Preferences/Values | North America | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law -
ArticlePublication 2021COVID and the Age–VSL Relationship
In this article, the researchers explore the approach used to value COVID-19 mortality risk reductions …
In this article, the researchers explore the approach used to value COVID-19 mortality risk reductions in analyses of lockdowns and other policies. Many rely on a population-average estimate of the value per statistical life (VSL); others adjust VSL for life expectancy at the age of death. The article explores the implications of theory and empirical studies, which suggest that the relationship between age and VSL is uncertain; these uncertainties in turn may affect whether the…
Preferences/Values | North America | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Government/Law | Health/Medicine -
ArticlePublication 2021Identifying Credible Sources of Health Information in Social Media: Principles and Attributes
Social media is widely used as a source of health information for the general public. …
Social media is widely used as a source of health information for the general public. The potential for information shared through social media to influence health outcomes necessitates action by social media platforms to enhance access and exposure to high-quality, science-based information. This paper summarizes the work of an independent advisory group convened by the National Academy of Medicine that deliberated and gathered information to develop a set of initial principles and attributes that could…
Preferences/Values | North America | Decision Psychology | Social Determinants | Policy/Regulation | Culture/Society | Education/Labor | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2021Why the Backfire Effect Does Not Explain the Durability of Political Misperceptions
Previous research indicated that corrective information can sometimes provoke a so-called “backfire effect” in which …
Previous research indicated that corrective information can sometimes provoke a so-called “backfire effect” in which respondents more strongly endorsed a misperception about a controversial political or scientific issue when their beliefs or predispositions were challenged. This article shows how subsequent research and media coverage seized on this finding, distorting its generality and exaggerating its role relative to other factors in explaining the durability of political misperceptions. To the contrary, an emerging research consensus finds that…
Preferences/Values | North America | Decision Psychology | Social Determinants | Culture/Society | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2021Scientific Theory of Gist Communication and Misinformation Resistance
This article presents a framework for understanding how misinformation shapes decision-making, which has cognitive representations …
This article presents a framework for understanding how misinformation shapes decision-making, which has cognitive representations of gist at its core. The author discusses how the framework goes beyond prior work, and how it can be implemented so that valid scientific messages are more likely to be effective, remembered, and shared through social media, while misinformation is resisted. The distinction between mental representations of the rote facts of a message – its verbatim representation – and…
Preferences/Values | North America | Decision Psychology | Social Determinants | Policy/Regulation | Culture/Society | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2021Narrative Truth About Scientific Misinformation
Science and storytelling mean different things when they speak of truth. This difference leads some …
Science and storytelling mean different things when they speak of truth. This difference leads some to blame storytelling for presenting a distorted view of science and contributing to misinformation. Yet others celebrate storytelling as a way to engage audiences and share accurate scientific information. This review disentangles the complexities of how storytelling intersects with scientific misinformation. Storytelling is the act of sharing a narrative, and science and narrative represent two distinct ways of constructing reality.…
Preferences/Values | North America | Decision Psychology | Social Determinants | Culture/Society | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Global