Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2017Policy Makers, the International Community and the Population: Case Study on HIV/AIDS
A four-period game is developed between a policy maker, the international community, and the population. …
A four-period game is developed between a policy maker, the international community, and the population. This research supplements, through implementing strategic interaction, earlier research analyzing "one player at a time." The first two players distribute funds between preventing and treating diseases. The population reacts by degree of risky behavior which may cause no disease, disease contraction, recovery, sickness/death. More funds to prevention implies less disease contraction but higher death rate given disease contraction. The cost…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Mathematical Models | Decision Psychology | Global | Infectious Diseases | Health Systems | Global Governance | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Health/Medicine -
ReviewPublication 2014Valuing Vaccination
Vaccination has led to remarkable health gains over the last century. However, large coverage gaps …
Vaccination has led to remarkable health gains over the last century. However, large coverage gaps remain, which will require significant financial resources and political will to address. In recent years, a compelling line of inquiry has established the economic benefits of health, at both the individual and aggregate levels. Most existing economic evaluations of particular health interventions fail to account for this new research, leading to potentially sizable undervaluation of those interventions. In line with…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Preferences/Values | Costing Methods | Global | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine -
Working PaperPublication 2024Economic Evaluation Primer
Economic evaluation is a powerful tool, encouraging the systematic collection and assessment of the evidence …
Economic evaluation is a powerful tool, encouraging the systematic collection and assessment of the evidence needed to support sound policy decisions. In low- and middle-income countries, where resources are especially scarce and needs are very great, such decisions are exceptionally difficult. In these settings, economic evaluation can be particularly useful in determining how to best improve health and welfare. Typically, cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) is used to prioritize interventions within the health care sector. This approach…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Costing Methods | Global | Health Outcomes | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Policy/Regulation -
ArticlePublication 2021Health Benefit Package Design
Policymakers face difficult choices over which health interventions to publicly finance. This article presents an …
Policymakers face difficult choices over which health interventions to publicly finance. This article presents an approach to health benefits package design that accommodates explicit tradeoffs between improvements in health and provision of financial risk protection. The authors designed a mathematical optimization model to balance gains in health and financial risk protection across candidate interventions when publicly financed. The optimal subset of interventions selected for inclusion was determined with bi-criterion integer programming conditional on a budget…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Mathematical Models | Global -
ArticlePublication 2021Rational Policymaking during a Pandemic
Policymaking during a pandemic can be extremely challenging. As COVID-19 is a new disease and …
Policymaking during a pandemic can be extremely challenging. As COVID-19 is a new disease and its global impacts are unprecedented, decisions are taken in a highly uncertain, complex, and rapidly changing environment. In such a context, in which human lives and the economy are at stake, the authors argue that using ideas and constructs from modern decision theory, even informally, will make policymaking a more responsible and transparent process.
Priority Setting/Ethics | Decision Theory | Global | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2020Perceptions of COVID-19 around the World
This study evaluates public risk perception of COVID-19 around the world in ten countries across …
This study evaluates public risk perception of COVID-19 around the world in ten countries across Europe, America, and Asia. They found that significant predictors of risk perception included personal experience with the virus, individualistic and prosocial values, hearing about the virus from friends and family, trust in government, science, and medical professionals, personal knowledge of government strategy, and personal and collective efficacy. Although there was substantial variability across cultures, individualistic worldviews, personal experience, prosocial values,…
Preferences/Values | Decision Psychology | Global | Risk Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Culture/Society | Health/Medicine -
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 | Decision Psychology | Global | Social Determinants | Culture/Society | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | North America -
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 | Global | Social Determinants | Culture/Society | Energy/Engineering | Education/Labor | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | North America -
ArticlePublication 2021Misinformation in and About Science
Humans learn about the world by collectively acquiring information, filtering it, and sharing what we …
Humans learn about the world by collectively acquiring information, filtering it, and sharing what we know. Misinformation undermines this process. The repercussions are extensive. Without reliable and accurate sources of information, we cannot hope to halt climate change, make reasoned democratic decisions, or control a global pandemic. Most analyses of misinformation focus on popular and social media, but the scientific enterprise faces a parallel set of problems – from hype and hyperbole to publication bias…
Preferences/Values | Decision Psychology | Global | Social Determinants | Culture/Society | Government/Law | Science/Technology | North America