Resources Repository
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ReportPublication 2017Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda
Science and technology are embedded in virtually every aspect of modern life. As a result, …
Science and technology are embedded in virtually every aspect of modern life. As a result, people face an increasing need to integrate information from science with their personal values and other considerations as they make important life decisions about medical care, the safety of foods, what to do about climate change, and many other issues. Communicating science effectively, however, is a complex task and an acquired skill. Moreover, the approaches to communicating science that will…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Preferences/Values | Decision Psychology | Energy/Engineering | Culture/Society | Social Determinants | Climate/Environment | Education/Labor | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | North America -
ReviewPublication 2016Choosing an Epidemiological Model Structure for Economic Evaluation
This review presents a taxonomy of epidemiological model structures and applies it to the economic …
This review presents a taxonomy of epidemiological model structures and applies it to the economic evaluation of public health interventions for non-communicable diseases. Growing pressures on health services and on social care have led to a greater need for prevention of chronic diseases. In order for decision makers to make informed judgements about how to best spend finite public health resources, they must be able to quantify the anticipated costs, benefits, and opportunity costs of…
Microsimulation | Culture/Society | Mathematical Models | State-Transition | Dynamic Transmission | Dynamic Simulation | Chronic Disease/Risk | Social Determinants | Environmental Health | Health Systems | Climate/Environment | Health/Medicine -
ReportPublication 2021What It Means to Be a Science-Literate Citizen in a Digital World
Science literacy is often held up as crucial for avoiding science-related misinformation and enabling more …
Science literacy is often held up as crucial for avoiding science-related misinformation and enabling more informed individual and collective decision-making. But research has not yet examined whether science literacy actually enables this, nor what skills it would need to encompass to do so. This report addresses three questions to outline what it should mean to be science literate in today’s world: (1) How should we conceptualize science literacy? (2) How can we achieve this science…
Preferences/Values | Decision Psychology | Energy/Engineering | Culture/Society | Social Determinants | Education/Labor | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Global | North America -
ArticlePublication 2021Misinformation and Public Opinion of Science and Health
This article summarizes the literature on misinformation, beginning with an overview of the most common …
This article summarizes the literature on misinformation, beginning with an overview of the most common definitions of misinformation (and related terms) in the communication literature and then a review of academic studies in the areas of science and health. The author acknowledges four overarching questions that have emerged prominently in recent years: (1) What does “misinformation” (and the terms that are oftentimes treated synonymously) mean? (2) How big of a problem is it in areas…
Preferences/Values | Decision Psychology | Energy/Engineering | Culture/Society | Social Determinants | Climate/Environment | Education/Labor | Science/Technology | Global | North America -
ArticlePublication 2019Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder
This article, in brief, discusses (1) that many types of information disorder exist online, from …
This article, in brief, discusses (1) that many types of information disorder exist online, from fabricated videos to impersonated accounts to memes designed to manipulate genuine content, (2) automation and microtargeting tactics have made it easier for agents of disinformation to weaponize regular users of the social web to spread harmful messages, and (3) much research is needed to understand the effects of disinformation and build safeguards against it. This description was adapted from the…
Preferences/Values | Decision Psychology | Energy/Engineering | Culture/Society | Climate/Environment | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Global | North America -
Resource PackPublication, Teaching Resource 2023Resource Pack: Books on Decision Making and Thinking
This resource pack, curated by the Center for Health Decision Science, features books about how …
This resource pack, curated by the Center for Health Decision Science, features books about how we think, learn, and decide. We aim to provide an introduction to some of the core concepts in decision theory and psychology with this collection, and hope that it will stimulate further inquiry. These books are geared to a general audience; the majority are very accessible reads. The collection is broadly divided into three categories. The first is made up of…
Preferences/Values | Probability/Bayes | Decision Psychology | Decision Theory | Culture/Society | Business/Industry | Climate/Environment | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Global | High School | College | Graduate | Doctoral | Professional | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Decision Making/Leadership | Policy Translation -
ReviewPublication 2015Agent-Based Models and Microsimulation
This article reviews the principles and applications of agent-based models (ABMs). ABMs are computational models …
This article reviews the principles and applications of agent-based models (ABMs). ABMs are computational models used to simulate the actions and interactions of “agents” within a system. Usually, each agent has a set of rules for how he or she responds to the environment and to other agents. These models are used to gain insight into the emergent behavior of complex systems with many agents, in which the emergent behavior depends upon the micro-level behavior…
Microsimulation | Energy/Engineering | Mathematical Models | State-Transition | Dynamic Simulation | Health/Medicine | Military/Defense | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2016“Nudges” in Law and Policy
This article describes research on Americans’ preferences for types of “nudges” in the context of …
This article describes research on Americans’ preferences for types of “nudges” in the context of law and public policy—those that target “system 1” thinking, meaning the intuitive, emotion-based mechanisms, such as graphic warnings and default rules, versus those that target “system 2” thinking, the rational, deliberative form of cognition, such as statistical information or education-based messages.
Priority Setting/Ethics | Preferences/Values | Decision Psychology | Culture/Society | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law | Health/Medicine -
BookPublication 2016Foundations of Decision Analysis
This book is described by the authors as emerging from what they have learned by …
This book is described by the authors as emerging from what they have learned by "teaching decision analysis to thousands of people in the United States and around the world in university classes and special professional educational programs". The early chapters and certain later chapters are written to be accessible to a general audience. Chapters 1 through 17 introduce the foundations of decision analysis without requiring significant mathematical sophistication. Chapter 26 discusses multi-attribute decision problems…
Probability/Bayes | Decision Psychology | Decision Theory | Energy/Engineering | Decision Analysis | Operations Research | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Military/Defense | Global