Stanford University

Health and Medicine

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.

The May 2008 US-China Insurance Dialogues

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John Morrison will give an overview of Sino-US cooperation on social insurance regulation
with a focus on health policy, as one window into Sino-US relations on the verge of the
Olympics.

Mr. Morrison is Montana Insurance Commissioner and Vice Chair of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) International Committee, in charge of cooperation with Asia. His talk will draw from his April visit to China with the NAIC President for bilateral meetings with the Chinese counterpart, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), as well as participation in the the US-China Insurance Dialogues with the US Trade Representative on May 15-16, 2008, in Hangzhou, PRC.

Philippines Conference Room

John Morrison Insurance Commissioner Speaker State of Montana
Seminars

Young Kyung Do

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Postdoctoral Fellow in Asia Health Policy Program, 2008-09
Do.JPG MD, PhD

Young Kyung Do is the inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow in the Asia Health Policy Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He completed his Ph.D. in health policy and administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health in August 2008. He has also earned M.D. and Master of Public Health degrees from Seoul National University (in 1997 and 2003, respectively). He earned board certification in preventive medicine from the Korean Medical Association in 2004. His research interests include population aging and health care, comparative health policy, health and development, quality of care, program evaluation, and quantitative methods in health research.

He received the First Prize Award in the Graduate Student Paper Competition in the Korea Labor and Income Panel Study Conference in 2007. He also is the recipient of the Harry T. Phillips Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Doctoral Student from the UNC Department of Health Policy and Administration in 2007. In May 2008, he was selected as a New Investigator in Global Health by the Global Health Council.

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The Economics of Tobacco Control and Healthcare Reforms in China

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Teh-wei Hu is a Professor Emeritus of health economics at the University of California, Berkeley.  At Berkeley, he served as associate dean (1999-2002) and department chair (1990-1993) in the School of Public Health.  He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin.  

During the past 40 years, Professor Hu has been teaching and conducting research in health economics, particularly in healthcare financing and the economics of tobacco control.  Hu was a Fulbright scholar in China. He has served as consultant or advisor to the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Medicine, the Rand Corporation, the Ministry of Health in the People's Republic of China, Department of Health and Welfare in Hong Kong, Department of Health in the Republic of China (Taiwan), and many private research institutions and foundations. 

Professor Hu will speak to us immediately after an April trip to China, sharing his research and perspectives on the economics of tobacco control and the debate about healthcare system reforms in China (including a possible link between the two through financing expansions in coverage through increased tobacco taxation).

Philippines Conference Room

Teh-wei Hu Professor Emeritus Speaker University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health
Seminars

Announcing the Asia-Pacific Health Policy Forum

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Karen Eggleston
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The Asia Health Policy Program of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center invites scholars from multiple disciplines to join the Asia-Pacific Health Policy Forum (APHPF) by creating your own account on our website.  Your information will be saved in our online database, searchable by name, country or region of focus, discipline, and topic.  

The mission of the Asia-Pacific Health Policy Forum (APHPF) is to serve as a resource for social science research, teaching, and evidence-based policymaking about health and healthcare in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Specifically, APHPF aims to

  • encourage collaboration among social scientists doing research on health policy in the Asia-Pacific region;
  • serve as a resource for teaching about health and healthcare in specific countries and regions within the Asia-Pacific;
  • provide analysis to inform policy, by offering a forum for rapid dissemination of policy-relevant research results, as well as by linking organizations, programs, conferences and white papers about specific health policy issues; and
  • raise awareness and foster dialogue among researchers, policymakers, and business about cross-cutting themes and global challenges of health and healthcare access, quality, and cost, within the specific historical and cultural contexts of the diverse nations of the Asia-Pacific. 

We encourage all researchers with an interest in health and healthcare in the Asia-Pacific to create an account and to submit information about upcoming conferences and sessions within larger disciplinary conferences that focus on any aspect of health policy in the Asia-Pacific to the Forum coordinator, Karen Eggleston. 

There are no membership dues, as the Forum is currently supported by the Asian Health Policy Program of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University.

The Asia-Pacific Health Policy Forum represents a multidisciplinary effort to build organizational linkages and work toward developing an Asia-Pacific parallel to the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policy.

With your help, the APHPF can develop into a vibrant resource and networking support for all of us seeking to understand and improve health and healthcare systems in the region.

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Young Kyung Do Awarded Inaugural Postdoctoral Fellowship in Comparative Health Policy

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The Asia Health Policy Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is pleased to announce that Dr. Young Kyung Do has been awarded the %fellowship1% for 2008-2009.

Dr. Do is currently completing his Ph.D. in health policy and administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health. He is particularly interested in policy challenges associated with rapid population aging in East Asia. His dissertation examines informal care in South Korea and its effects on health care use and caregivers’ labor force participation. Dr. Do has also earned M.D. and Master of Public Health degrees from Seoul National University (in 1997 and 2003, respectively). He earned board certification in preventive medicine from the Korean Medical Association in 2004. While at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Do has participated in several research projects and published collaborative research on topics ranging from methodology for causal inference to empirical analysis of disparities in health care use.

While at Shorenstein APARC, Dr. Do will undertake comparative study of public long-term care insurance in Japan and South Korea. He will also begin comparative empirical analysis of the effect of long-term care insurance on informal caregiving, elderly health care, and informal caregivers’ labor force participation in Japan and South Korea. Dr. Do will work closely with the Center’s program on Asian health policy on such activities as the colloquium series on health and aging in the Asia-Pacific and an “Aging Asia” conference.

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Informal Care for the Elderly in South Korea and the Impact on Caregivers' Labor Force Participation

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Rapid population aging in many Asian countries poses an increased burden of care for elderly people with disabilities. Traditionally, care for the disabled elderly was provided by family members co-residing or living nearby. However, declining fertility rates, eroding social norms, and growing rates of labor force participation among females have changed the overall picture of informal care. 

One important policy question is whether informal caregiving affects caregivers' labor force participation. This question is particularly relevant for rapidly developing economies including newly industrialized countries, because a shrinking working-age population is another major concern with population aging. Providing different answers to this question leads to different policy implications for long-term care policy and labor market policy. 

Most of the existing literature on this issue comes from the United States and Europe. Using data from the first wave of the "Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging", Do's research not only provides results from a less-studied Asian society, but also takes into account different patterns of living arrangements and labor force participation. His talk will deal with the methodological issue of endogeneity between informal caregiving and labor force participation, and explore gender and age group differences.

Young Kyung Do is currently completing his PhD in health policy and administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health. He has also earned both an MD and a master of public health degrees from Seoul National University (in 1997 and 2003, respectively). Young earned board certification in preventive medicine from the Korean Medical Association in 2004.

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Young Kyung Do

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Postdoctoral Fellow in Asia Health Policy Program, 2008-09
Do.JPG MD, PhD

Young Kyung Do is the inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow in the Asia Health Policy Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He completed his Ph.D. in health policy and administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health in August 2008. He has also earned M.D. and Master of Public Health degrees from Seoul National University (in 1997 and 2003, respectively). He earned board certification in preventive medicine from the Korean Medical Association in 2004. His research interests include population aging and health care, comparative health policy, health and development, quality of care, program evaluation, and quantitative methods in health research.

He received the First Prize Award in the Graduate Student Paper Competition in the Korea Labor and Income Panel Study Conference in 2007. He also is the recipient of the Harry T. Phillips Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Doctoral Student from the UNC Department of Health Policy and Administration in 2007. In May 2008, he was selected as a New Investigator in Global Health by the Global Health Council.

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Young K. Do Speaker
Seminars

Innovation, Regulation, and Pharmaceutical Policy in the Asia-Pacific

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The Comparative Health Policy Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is proud to present a panel on “Innovation, Regulation, and Pharmaceutical Policy in the Asia-Pacific.” The panel will include presentations by F.M. Scherer (Harvard University); Henry G. Grabowski (Duke University); Mingzhi Li (Tsinghua University, PRC); Yiyong Yang (National Reform and Development Commission, PRC); Bong-min Yang (Seoul National University, ROK); John H. Barton (Stanford Law School); and pharmaceutical industry representatives.

The session is the opening to a conference on “Pharmaceuticals in the Asia-Pacific: Prescribing Cultures, Industry Dynamics, and Health Policy” hosted by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, March 7-8, 2008. The Friday morning session is free and open to the public.

The remainder of the conference is for the co-authors of a forthcoming book on Pharmaceuticals in the Asia-Pacific and thus by invitation only.

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Workshops

Conference on Healthcare Payment Incentives in the Asia Pacific

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Karen Eggleston
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The Asian health policy program is pleased to announce that a conference on "Provider Payment Incentives in the Asia Pacific" will be held November 7-8, 2008, at the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University in Beijing, P.R. China.

Organizers of the conference include health economists at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University; the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University; Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management Department of Economics; and Seoul National University School of Public Health.

We welcome empirical and theoretical research analyzing how reimbursement incentives shape health and healthcare behavior in the economies of the Asia Pacific. We especially welcome evaluations of policy reforms and natural experiments impacting health service provider incentives. The papers can examine payment incentives in one country, region, or healthcare setting, or include comparative analysis of two or more regions in the Asia Pacific.

Please email papers or extended abstracts (about 500 words) to Karen Eggleston. The submissions deadline is June 1, 2008. The selection committee will notify authors by July 1, 2008.

We also encourage inquiries from researchers that may have access to relevant payment reform data but are interested in support regarding their research design or analytic methods. We will work with you to identify appropriate collaborators and possible financial support for completing the research.

Authors of papers selected for presentation will receive partial subsidy for their participation in the conference as well as opportunity to publish their research in a special volume through the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University or in a special issue of an English-language health policy journal.

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Population Aging, Child Health and Control of Infectious Diseases

The Asia Health Policy Program works with other researchers at Stanford and several countries of the Asia-Pacific to analyze prominent issues in population aging, child health, and control of infectious disease. Examples include comparative study of long-term care insurance and informal caregiving; collaborative study of health and healthcare access for children with special health needs; and a research project focusing on controlling tuberculosis and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Northeast Asia.

Health Service Delivery in the Asia-Pacific: Ownership, Payment Incentives, and Chronic Disease Management

This theme encompasses research on the role of the private sector and public-private partnerships; payment incentives and their impact on patients and providers; organizational innovation, contracting, and soft budget constraints; and chronic disease management, starting with a comparative study of diabetes care.

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