Gerald Ashley (twitter handle @Gerald_Ashley) recently tweeted a photo of what was SUPPOSED to be a helpful nudge, reducing the odds that people would bump into each other going up and down the stairs. Can you see what might not be helpful here?
Here is a figure reproduced in Fortune, showing that when researchers publish articles raising questions about the harms of salt, they cite other researchers who raised similar questions. By contrast, when they definitively argue in favor of the harms, they cite other definitive colleagues. Some of this makes scientific sense. If you show a particular…
Happiness doesn’t always come easily. Some people seem naturally happy, like they inherited the right gene or were born into the right circumstances. Many other people struggle to find happiness. Perhaps even more people hope to become happier than they already are. But what kind of plan should people follow if they are hoping to…
When Lorie Duff was pregnant with her third child, she did what all good moms are supposed to do. She went to the ObGyn clinic for prenatal care. But she fell behind on the clinic payments. She only made about $25,000 a year managing an auto parts store while her husband stayed home with their…
Obamacare dramatically reduced the number of people in United States who lack health insurance. Reduced as in: brought the proportion down to historical lows. Yet very few Americans knew this about the law, which is part of the reason why so many people didn’t like Obamacare. Here’s evidence to back up that connection, from the…
My colleagues and I have been doing lots of research lately on how physicians and patients discuss out-of-pocket expenses during clinic encounters. One of our recent publications has been getting lots of attention, with this being the latest example. I thought I would share it with you: Recent qualitative findings published in Health Affairs showed that physicians…
Elizabeth Warren describes medical bills as “the leading cause of personal bankruptcy” in the United States. She bases that opinion in part on her own research, in which she and her collaborators surveyed people who had experienced personal bankruptcy, asked them whether they’d experienced health-related financial distress, and concluded that 60% of all bankruptcies in the U.S. result…