FSI’s researchers assess health and medicine through the lenses of economics, nutrition and politics. They’re studying and influencing public health policies of local and national governments and the roles that corporations and nongovernmental organizations play in providing health care around the world. Scholars look at how governance affects citizens’ health, how children’s health care access affects the aging process and how to improve children’s health in Guatemala and rural China. They want to know what it will take for people to cook more safely and breathe more easily in developing countries.
FSI professors investigate how lifestyles affect health. What good does gardening do for older Americans? What are the benefits of eating organic food or growing genetically modified rice in China? They study cost-effectiveness by examining programs like those aimed at preventing the spread of tuberculosis in Russian prisons. Policies that impact obesity and undernutrition are examined; as are the public health implications of limiting salt in processed foods and the role of smoking among men who work in Chinese factories. FSI health research looks at sweeping domestic policies like the Affordable Care Act and the role of foreign aid in affecting the price of HIV drugs in Africa.
"Getting children in developing countries into school is only half the battle. We must also ensure they learn once they are there."
Practice guidelines aim to guide physician practice according to the best available evidence. Data were mixed regarding the impact of practice guidelines on physician prescribing. The researchers analyzed data from three national ambulatory care surveys to depict long-term trends in U.S.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic has decimated family life in Africa. This project focused on the welfare of the “orphaned-elderly” – a class of elderly dependents whose traditional care-giving arrangements have collapsed. The authors presented their findings in January 2008. A manuscript, “HIV and Africa’s ‘Orphaned Elderly,’” was published in British Medical Journal. Another manuscript entitled, “The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in Africa: An Evaluation of Outcomes” was published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
The researchers developed models for the time course of the economic demography of remote Chinese villages that takes into account the migration, and sometimes return, of the villagers, the predicted remittances, the costs for maintenance of those remaining in the villages (mainly parents and children of the migrants), and the marriage squeeze on males, which is very pronounced in remote rural China. They constructed formal mathematical models that include the above-mentioned features, as well as the rate of migration (which is available from our data).
This project studied the patterns of health and health care disparities across elderly and non-elderly in China, including the impact of earlier educational and public health interventions on contemporary elderly.
Urbanization and obesity-related chronic diseases are cited as threats to the future health of India's older citizens. With 50% of deaths in adult Indians currently due to chronic diseases, the relationship of urbanization and migration trends to obesity patterns have important population health implications for older Indians. The researchers constructed and calibrated a set of 21 microsimulation models of weight and height of Indian adults. The models separately represented current urban and rural populations of India's major states and were further stratified by sex.
The aim of this seed is to identify the relative impact of various cost drivers on the increasing cost of hypertension treatment among US elderly. Different drivers may have different implications for cost containment.
This study aimed to expand knowledge regarding chronic disease and readmissions in the elderly The researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development Patient Discharge Data, 2000-2009, which includes all adults age 18 and older with a non-federal acute care hospital discharge (n= 29,009,966 discharges). We identified 7- and 30-day all cause readmissions (ACR) and potentially preventable readmissions (PPR), and then analyzed relationships between index and readmission hospitalizations for each metric.
The researchers assessed the effect of social isolation and loneliness on healthcare utilization (costs and frequency of care) using longitudinal survey data from the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) linked to Medicare administrative claims data. This study provides the first representative picture of the correlation social isolation and loneliness have with total Medicare costs.
The researchers conducted a series of studies using nationally-representative data from the recent WHO Study on Global Aging and Adult Health (SAGE) to identify the relationship between NCD-related disability among adults over 50 years of age in India and healthcare utilization and costs. The study to date has found that older rural women were disproportionately affected by non-diagnosed NCDs, with high out of pocket healthcare expenditures increasing the probability of remaining symptomatic from NCDs.
