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.
Intergenerational Living Arrangements in South Korea: Health and Economic Implications
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Health and Aging in Japan
Professor Hidehiko Ichimura of the University of Tokyo will share recent results from his research on the health of older adults and the retirement process in Japan. His research draws upon a unique data source, the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR). This rich dataset provides information on how middle-aged and elderly Japanese live in terms of economic, social, and health outcomes, and how these interact with their family status. The JSTAR project aims to provide longitudinal data enabling detailed policy-relevant comparisons to other industrialized countries (e.g. the Survey on Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe, the US Health and Retirement Study, the English Longitudinal Study on Aging, and similar surveys now launched in Korea, China, and India).
Professor Ichimura received his BA in economics from Osaka University in 1981 and his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1988. He has taught at the University of Minnesota, the University of Pittsburgh, and University College London. He is now Professor in the Graduate School of Public Policy and Graduate School of Economics at the University of Tokyo.
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Hidehiko Ichimura
Professor in the Graduate School of Public Policy and Graduate School of Economics
Speaker
University of Tokyo
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Prevention of Chronic Noncommunicable Disease in Mongolia: A Facility-Based Qualitative Study
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Nutrition, physical activity, smoking, and alcohol consumption are major causes of morbidity and mortality related to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Hypertension, diabetes type II, cancer, and chronic pulmonary diseases cause 60 percent of deaths worldwide and will likely increase by 17 percent during the next 10 years. Eighty percent of deaths caused by NCDs are registered in low- and middle-income countries in the working-age population and contribute to the growth of poverty [1,2,3].
During the last 15 years in Mongolia the leading causes of mortality have been cardiovascular disease and cancer.
This qualitative survey is one part of the Facility-Based Impact Study (FBIS) and was funded by the MCA Health Project. The overall goal of the MCA Health Project is to reduce mortality and morbidity caused by NCD and traffic accidents. Over a period of five years, the project aims to provide the population with essential knowledge about health promotion, the prevention and early detection of NCDs, and the adoption of healthy lifestyles through capacity building for the health system and, more specifically, for the preventive facilities. One main activity of the project is to improve primary health services related to NCDs through interventions for capacity building on the level of health facilities. This FBIS focuses on assessing the current situation in the facilities to enable a later comparison of the results of this baseline study and a later follow-up study to evaluate the impact of the Health Project on the performance of health staff, their knowledge, attitudes, and practice in the facilities, and the preparedness of facilities in terms of equipment and staff. The survey was carried out by a joint team of local and international consultants from the MCA Health Project, EPOS Health Management and THL Finland, and researchers from the School of Public Health.
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Asia Health Policy Program working paper # 31
Gender Imbalance and Social Network Pressures in Rural China
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China and some other Asian countries have experienced a large surplus of men of marriageable age. The existing literature studies the impact of sex imbalance using aggregate sex ratios, such as at the county, city, or province level. However, these studies may miss important impacts on health and behavior because the relevance of surplus sons to family decisions mainly stems from pressure conveyed through social interactions with the local reference group.
This paper draws from unique social network data, collected from households' long-term spontaneous gift exchange records (li dan), combined with household panel data from 18 Chinese villages to explore the prevalence of men's localized pressure to get married. The surveyed villages are home to Chinese ethnic minorities, which largely circumvents endogenous fertility decisions on the first-born child due to the implementation of One Child Policy and its associated relaxations afterwards. To identify the effect of pressure to find wives for their sons on parental risky behavior, we focus on comparing families with a first-born boy versus a first-born girl and distinguish the network spillover effect from the direct effect.
The spatial econometric decompositions suggest that the pressure mainly originates from a few friends with unmarried sons and unbalanced sex ratios in the friendship networks, though own village sex ratio and having an unmarried son also affects parental risk-taking behavior. The results are consistent across specifications allowing for long-run and short-run effects. We also find similar patterns for parental working hours, their likelihood to engage in entrepreneurial activities and decision to migrate. In contrast, parents with a daughter do not demonstrate this pattern. Since the sex ratio imbalance in China will probably worsen in the next decade, disentangling the real sources of marriage market pressure may help design policies to improve parental well-being.
Dr. Xi Chen's main research interests involve health economics and development economics in the developing contexts. He recently completed his PhD in applied economics at Cornell. His research seeks to better understand how social interactions affect health behavior and outcomes, how socioeconomic status drives social competition. Most of his current work draws on primary data from China and secondary data from India and Indonesia.
Philippines Conference Room
Xi Chen
Assistant Professor
Speaker
Department of Health Policy and Management Yale School of Public Health
Seminars
Marjorie Pajaron
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pajaron@stanford.edu
Visiting Scholar at APARC, 2026
Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow, 2012-2013
Marjorie Pajaron joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center as Visiting Scholar beginning April 2026 through July 2026 from the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPSE), where she serves as Associate Professor in the School of Economics. She was previously at APARC as Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow during the 2012–13 academic year.
While at APARC, she conducted research on the migration of healthcare workers from the Philippines and the nexus with climate change.
Pajaron received a PhD in economics from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.
Publications:
Ramel, R. C. D., Legaspi, J. D., & Pajaron, M. C. (2026). Illuminating the land: the effects of nighttime lights on land values in the Philippines. Remote Sensing Letters, 17(5), 465–477. https://doi.org/10.1080/2150704X.2026.2650396
Pajaron M, Vasquez GN. (2023). Weather, Lockdown, and the Pandemic: Evidence from the Philippines. Philipp J Sci 152(S1): 47–62. https://doi.org/10.56899/152.S1.04
Pajaron, M.C., Vasquez, G.N.A. (2020). Weathering the storm: weather shocks and international labor migration from the Philippines. Journal of Population Economics 33, 1419–1461. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-020-00779-1
Pajaron, M. (2017). “The Role of Remittances as a Risk-Coping Mechanism: Evidence from Agricultural Households in the Philippines.” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 26 (1): 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/01171968166806
Pajaron, M. (2016). “Heterogeneity in the Intrahousehold Allocation of International Remittances: Evidence from Philippine Households.” Journal of Development Studies 52 (6): 854–875. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2015.1113261
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Long-Term Outcomes and Heterogeneity of Effects of Health Interventions in Matlab, Bangladesh
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Long-Term Outcomes and Heterogeneity of Effects of Health Interventions in Matlab, Bangladesh
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Gender Imbalance in China: A Cautionary Tale of Land Reform, Income, and Sex Ratios
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Venue Changed to the Philippines Conference Room
This paper examines the effect of income growth induced by 1978–84 land reform on the
sex ratio imbalance in China. Using variation in reform timing by county together with the
absence of sex selection among first-born child, we compare the sex of the second child between families with a first girl and those with a first boy before and after the reform. Results show that following a first daughter, the second child is 5.5 percent more likely to be a boy after landreform. Better educated parents are substantially more likely to respond with sex selection. After assessing various potential channels, our evidence is most consistent with an effect of increased household income.
Shuang Zhang is a postdoctoral fellow at SIEPR. She received her PhD from Cornell University in 2012 and will start as an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder after one year at SIEPR. Her primary interests are development, health and education. Her current work focuses on various reforms and health outcomes in China.
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Shuang Zhang
Postdoctoral Fellow, SIEPR
Speaker
Stanford University
Seminars
Visitors a vibrant part of the Asia Health Policy Program
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Countries throughout the world increasingly share similar health policy challenges such as healthcare and insurance reform, rapid demographic change, and high rates of chronic diseases like diabetes. The Asia-Health Policy Program (AHPP) is one of several Stanford organizations seeking solutions to major global health issues through a comparative study of the health policies of different countries. Visiting fellows and scholars from Asia play an integral part in AHPP’s research, publishing, and outreach activities.
Since AHPP’s founding in 2007, the program has hosted 10 visitors from Asia, including Cambodia, China, and Korea, and, in the coming academic year, it will welcome three new visitors, from Japan, Mongolia, and the Philippines. In just five years AHPP has established strong postdoctoral and developing Asia fellowship programs, in addition to the visiting scholars it hosts. Lasting ties have been established, resulting in numerous publications as well as research and outreach projects in Asia.
Even now we still keep in touch and collaborate on certain research areas.
-Yan Wang, 2009–10 Visiting Scholar
Three former AHPP visitors recently spoke about their experience with the program and about the work they have been doing since their time at Stanford.
Young Kyung Do, AHPP’s inaugural postdoctoral fellow (2008–09), conducted research on the social and economic implications of population aging in Asia. Focusing on education and diabetes care, Do also examined the impact of socioeconomic disparities on the health and health care of elderly citizens. AHPP helped define his future research agenda, and also provided him with publishing opportunities, including collaborating on a chapter on diabetes in the edited volume Aging Asia (2010). Do is now an assistant professor with the Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School, where he studies health economics and policy issues related to population aging and noncommunicable diseases in Southeast and East Asia.
Byongho Tchoe served as a visiting scholar during the 2008–09 academic year, researching and writing about health care reform in South Korea. Tchoe enjoyed conducting research in Stanford’s peaceful campus environment, and taking part in seminars offered by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and other Stanford organizations. He contributed the chapter “Old-Age Pension Reform in South Korea” to Aging Asia, and published a working paper and article on the impact of population aging on medical costs in South Korea. Tchoe is now the president of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs in Seoul.
Yan Wang (former), an AHPP visiting scholar from 2009 to 2010, is currently deputy director of the Division of Disease Control in the Health Department of China’s Shandong Province. At AHPP, Wang studied how private health care providers, in conjunction with government-run health services, can help improve the overall primary care available in China’s cities. She also collaborated with Stanford’s Asian Liver Center to develop an online program to provide better hepatitis B education to health professionals in Shandong. Wang appreciated attending AHPP seminars and learning about health reform around the world, and still remains in touch with some of the scholars she connected with during her time at Stanford.
AHPP looks forward to continuing to welcome and collaborate with visiting fellows and scholars in the coming years, and to expanding its postdoctoral and developing Asia fellowship programs.
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