The Asia Health Policy Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is pleased to announce that Brian K. Chen has been awarded the %fellowship1% for 2009-2010.  Brian is currently completing his Ph.D. in Business Administration in the Business and Public Policy Group at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley.  He received a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1997, and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1992. 

As an applied economist, Brian’s research focuses on the impact of incentives in health care organizations on provider and patient behavior.  For his dissertation, Brian empirically examined how vertical integration and prohibition against self-referrals affected physician prescribing behavior.  His job market paper has been selected for presentation at the American Law and Economics Association’s Annual Meeting in 2009.

Brian comes to the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center not only with a multidisciplinary law and economics background, but also with an international perspective from having lived and worked in Taiwan, Japan, and France.  He has a particularly intimate knowledge of the Taiwanese health care system from his experience as an assistant to the hospital administrator at a medical college in Taiwan.

During his residence as a postdoctoral fellow with the Asia Health Policy Program, Brian plans to conduct empirical research on cost containment policies in Taiwan and Japan and how those policies impacted provider behavior. His work will also contribute to the program’s research activities on comparative health systems and health service delivery in the Asia-Pacific, a theme that encompasses the historical evolution of health policies; 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 and service coordination for aging populations.

The Asia Health Policy Program hosted meetings of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities World Institute (AWI, www.apru.org/awi) public health research project, February 24-25 at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Stanford University is a member of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, and the Asia Health Policy Program coordinates with others on the steering committee for the AWI public health project. The project brings together scholars from leading Pacific Rim universities to focus on comparative study of chronic non-communicable disease – the number one cause of premature death worldwide – in selected Pacific Rim cities (Beijing, Danang, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Singapore, Jakarta, Makassar, Nanjing, Sydney, Taipei, Vientiane and Wuhan).

Ambassador Michael H. Armacost, Acting Director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, welcomed the participants -- researchers and deans of schools of public health from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia. During the deliberations, the participants agreed to establish a program of research and development to prepare tools for use by health systems worldwide to implement best practice in chronic disease prevention and management through four areas of research: risk factor surveillance; assessment of costs and organization of services; change management to implement best practice; and monitoring and evaluation.

The previous meeting of the AWI public health project was held in November 2008 in Singapore. The next meeting will be held in June 2009 at Johns Hopkins University (an Invited Member of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities World Institute).

On February 23, prior to the public health project meetings, the Asia Health Policy Program also hosted the planning meetings for the AWI 2009 public health workshop, to be held at Johns Hopkins University June 24-26, 2009.

On February 26, 2009, the Asia Health Policy Program and the Stanford Center on Longevity co-sponsored a conference entitled Aging Asia: Economic and Social Implications of Rapid Demographic Change in China, Japan, and Korea. Held at the Bechtel Conference Center at Stanford University, the conference brought together scholars from China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the US with expertise in demography, economics, biology, political science, medicine, health services research, social policy, and psychology.

Topics of discussion included how demography shapes individual, social and economic transitions in China, Japan and Korea; intergenerational transfers and the impact of population aging on economic growth; the challenges to financing health care, long term care, and pensions in China, Japan and Korea; the chronic disease burden and comparative international experience with chronic disease management; and perspectives from Singapore on public policy for aging populations. 

A book gathering together the policy-relevant insights of the conference presenters will be forthcoming in 2010, edited by Asia Health Policy Program Director Karen Egglestonand Professor of Biology Shripad Tuljapurkar.