Vaccination Works!

Many parents believe that vaccination provides little benefit for their own children, and instead only reduces the probability other kids get sick.  A Kaiser Permanente study refutes this belief for the whooping cough: Compared to children who are immunized against whooping cough, those who aren’t vaccinated are 23 times more likely to get the infection — a…

THE 4 Questions Economics Researchers Need to Ask

When beginning your research, here are the questions you need to ask yourself [from Mostly Harmless Econometrics]: What is the causal relationship of interest?  What specific mechanism will cause a change in the dependent variable of interest?  Often one uses economic theory to predict these causal relationships. What experiment could be used to capture the causal effect of…

AIDS Crowds-Out

Case and Paxson (2009): “We document the impact of the AIDS crisis on non-AIDS related health services in fourteen sub-Saharan African countries…Regions of countries that have light AIDS burdens have witnessed small or no declines in health care, using the measures noted above, while those regions currently shouldering the heaviest burdens have seen the largest…

Links

Health Plan CEO Compensation. How to produce drugs for developing nations. Obesity…not as bad as previously thought. “Overweight or obese had fewer complications and a lower 1-year mortality than those who were thin or of normal weight.” Sotomayor: Supreme Court nominee, diabetic. The Packers new 3-4 defense. Barça ganó el Champions. My favorite news magazine…

Grant-writing Tips

Yesterday, I attended a lecture by Peter Wagner about grant-writing.  The talk focused on grants in the sciences, and I will pass on Dr. Wagner’s advice to my loyal readers. Three Golden Rules After writing each section of the grant, re-read it as if you were a reviewer. Finish the grant application at least 2…

CT Scans…for the dead?

Since 2004, every service man and woman killed in Iraq or Afghanistan has been given a CT scan.  The military has a database of over 3000 of these scans.  This information “…has revealed deficiencies in body armor and vehicle shielding and led to improvements in helmets and medical equipment used on the battlefield.”