Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2020Conspiracy Theories as Barriers to Controlling the Spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.
This article uses national probability survey data of U.S. adults to assess the relationship between …
This article uses national probability survey data of U.S. adults to assess the relationship between belief in three COVID-19-related conspiracy theories to adoption of preventive measures recommended by public health authorities, vaccination intentions, conspiracy beliefs, perceptions of threat, belief about the safety of vaccines, political ideology, and media exposure patterns. Authors found that conspiracy theory beliefs were highly stable across two periods of the survey and inversely related to the (1) perceived threat of the…
Decision Psychology | Preferences/Values | Infectious Diseases | Social Determinants | Culture/Society | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | North America -
ArticlePublication 2018Addressing Health-Related Misinformation on Social Media
Policy makers and the social media industry grapple with the challenge of curbing fake news, …
Policy makers and the social media industry grapple with the challenge of curbing fake news, disinformation, and hate speech; and the field of medicine is similarly confronted with the spread of false, inaccurate, or incomplete health information. This viewpoint argues that medical, public health, social science, and computer science experts must begin working together via interdisciplinary research to address health misinformation on social media, with a focus on the following four themes: (1) defining the…
Decision Psychology | Social Determinants | Culture/Society | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | North America -
Resource PackPublication, Teaching Resource 2021Resource Pack: Role of Heuristics in Avalanche Education
Making decisions about backcountry skiing requires one to predict, manage, and mitigate avalanche risk. Individuals …
Making decisions about backcountry skiing requires one to predict, manage, and mitigate avalanche risk. Individuals need to understand and be comfortable with the language of probability, as well as appreciate the cognitive biases that can come into play in the context of decision making. This collection includes articles that range from early attempts to identify “heuristic traps,” based on a retrospective analysis of avalanche accidents in the United States more than 20 years ago, to…
Decision Psychology | Probability/Bayes | Injuries/Accidents | Climate/Environment | Culture/Society | College | Graduate | Doctoral | Professional | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Decision Making/Leadership -
ArticlePublication 2020New Fronts in the War on Misinformation
The countless false claims that have spread alongside the novel coronavirus – inaccurate advice about …
The countless false claims that have spread alongside the novel coronavirus – inaccurate advice about how to prevent the virus, for example, and conspiracy theories about its origins – are just the latest manifestation of an ongoing problem: the online proliferation of misinformation about science and health. The National Academies hosted and helped organize three events focused on countering misinformation: The MisinfoCon conference, a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, and a meeting to explore ways to expand successful…
Decision Psychology | Preferences/Values | Infectious Diseases | Social Determinants | Policy/Regulation | Culture/Society | Education/Labor | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | North America -
ArticlePublication 2019Modelling Hospital Operations from Paper Registry Data
This article, published in BMJ Global Health, aims to evaluate operations management techniques, which are …
This article, published in BMJ Global Health, aims to evaluate operations management techniques, which are underutilized in the Ethiopian health system. Previous research has outlined the limitations of paper-based patient records, but few studies have examined their potential utility for improving management of hospital operations. The authors use data collected from paper registries in an Ethiopian obstetrics ward at Addis Ababa’s Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital, Ethiopia’s largest university hospital, to model the ward’s operations. The…
Operations Research | Mathematical Models | Maternal/Reproductive Health | Health Systems | Health/Medicine | Sub-Saharan Africa -
Online LearningPodcast, Teaching Resource 2018Choiceology with Katy Milkman
Through a series of ~30 minute podcasts sponsored by Charles Schwab, Katy Milkman a Wharton …
Through a series of ~30 minute podcasts sponsored by Charles Schwab, Katy Milkman a Wharton Professor asks “can we learn to make smarter choices?” Available for free through Apple’s iTunes, Google Podcasts or Spotify, Milkman explores lessons that have been learned from behavioral economics, sharing stories of irrational decision making--from historical blunders to everyday errors with the potential to impact the future. Season 1 of Choiceology included 7 podcasts hosted by author Dan Heath that…
Decision Psychology | Global | High School | College | Graduate | Doctoral | Professional | Critical Thinking/Analysis -
Teaching PackPublication, Teaching Resource 2022Teaching Pack: Introduction to Decision Analysis
In this teaching pack on Introduction to Decision Analysis, students are provided a basic introduction to …
In this teaching pack on Introduction to Decision Analysis, students are provided a basic introduction to the field of decision analysis in the context of public health. After differentiating simple "relatively automatic" decisions from those that might require more systematic analysis, students are introduced to the core elements of a decision analysis (e.g., objectives, alternatives, probabilities, and outcomes), and the basic steps of a decision analysis. Materials include an instructor's note, videos, companion slides, a glossary,…
Decision Psychology | Probability/Bayes | Preferences/Values | Decision Analysis | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health/Medicine | Global | College | Graduate | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Quantitative Literacy -
Tutorial/PrimerPublication, Teaching Resource 2014Decision Theory: A Formal Philosophical Introduction
Decision theory is the study of how choices are and should be made in a …
Decision theory is the study of how choices are and should be made in a variety of different contexts. The author approaches the topic from a formal-philosophical point of view with a focus on normative and conceptual issues. After considering the question of how decision problems should be framed, he examines both the standard theories of chance under conditions of certainty, risk and uncertainty and some of the current debates about how uncertainty should be measured and how…
Decision Theory | Preferences/Values | Economics/Finance | Doctoral | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Quantitative Literacy -
ArticlePublication 2017Designing an Optimal HIV Programme for South Africa
This 2017 study compares the traditional and a novel method of comparing cost-effectiveness interventions in …
This 2017 study compares the traditional and a novel method of comparing cost-effectiveness interventions in the context of HIV in South Africa, using a modeling approach. The authors argue that the assumptions of a) independence of interventions, and b) linear scale-up effects do not hold because South Africa has a large domestically funded HIV program with highly saturated coverage levels. The authors therefore aim to better allocate resources for HIV interventions in South Africa when…
Operations Research | Priority Setting/Ethics | Mathematical Models | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Sub-Saharan Africa