Colon Cancer Screening Controversy. Here's What All The Debate Is About.


We’ve done a lot of things in the United States over the last few decades to curb tobacco consumption. We’ve warned people cigarettes will kill them, created persuasive ad campaigns to scare people away from cigarettes, and added a hefty tax to the product. As a result, cigarette use in United States is lower than…
The field of behavioral economics has brought attention to promising ways of motivating people to make better life choices. Many behavioral economic-inspired interventions are relatively hands off — they nudge people to make wiser decisions without in any way restricting their choices. The idea of nudges was made justifiably popular by Cass Sunstein and Dick Thaler…
Researchers at USC recently published a study designed to find out how much people are willing to pay for better drug coverage from their health insurance plan.
In a recently published article, a team of researchers showed that a simple graphical cue, showing people which foods are healthy and unhealthy, significantly improve their eating behaviors. Here is a nice summary of the study results, as summarized on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website: With a problem as large as America’s obesity epidemic,…
The US is finally making very small strides towards pulling healthcare prices out of the shadows. Here is a recent media story on the topic. U.S. hospitals are now required to list the prices of medical services online and update them annually, under a rule change that went into effect Jan. 1. Previously, hospitals only…
My friend and colleague Brian Wansink, from Cornell University, worked with some colleagues to design a preliminary restaurant menu, that maximizes the odds the people will order healthy foods. Trick number one: don’t call them “healthy” foods. Here is an image of that menu, reproduced in the Atlantic. This is a great example of how…