Event Date:
February 20th 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM
Epidemiology & Biostatistics PhD trainee Jacob Rich is presenting.
Abstract
The United States has the most complex health care delivery system in the world. Due to an abundance of regulatory distortions, the predicted effects of public health interventions often fail to materialize. This seminar presents two letters on economic interventions to illustrate common statistical malpractices in academic medicine. The first involves finance reform in Medicare and Medicaid for prescription pharmaceuticals, where average prices and lowest prices in the private market are referenced to set reimbursements, respectively. The next involves investment reform where environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores are used in addition to expected profit to purchase health care assets for investment purposes. These letters outline how the aforementioned interventions might have increased the price of health care services and led to company consolidation in the health care market—and how simultaneity and the ecological fallacy undermined prior evaluations of the interventions. Finally, this study outlines how such observational studies inevitably fall victim to arbitrary choices in methodology and statistical sophistry, leading to ideological battles that are unresolvable.
If unable to attend in person in Biomedical Research Building room 105, you may join via Zoom at
Meeting ID: 958 2937 2435
Passcode: 087450