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.

Dual Practice of Public Hospital Physicians: Implications for Universal Health Coverage in Vietnam

Thursday, May 18, 2017 | 12:00 PM -Thursday, May 18, 2017 | 1:30 PM

Vietnam has adopted a public-private mixed health service delivery system for 30 years to mobilize more resources for the health sector. Public hospital physicians are allowed to practice for the private sector outside official working hours; therefore, physician dual practice is very common. This paper investigates the characteristics and dynamics of the phenomenon, focusing on the choices of physicians about whether to engage in dual practice, as well as their performance in their public practice. The analysis is based on a survey at 10 public hospitals in Vietnam with 510 physicians. Half of public hospital physicians reported participating in at least one type of private practice. Personal characteristics (gender, age, position), private practice income, and clinical autonomy are the reasons for dual practice involvement. Dual practitioners spend more time overall in clinical practice than their non-dual-practice counterparts, but reduce the time for public practice to have more time for private practice. They are also more likely to refer public patients to private practice. Nevertheless physicians appear to still be committed to the public sector to enlarge their professional networking, participate in training opportunities, and fulfill their sense of public responsibility.

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Ngan Do is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University. Prior to that, she worked as a Health Leadership Development Initiative fellow at the World Health Organization Western Pacific Regional Office. Her research focuses on comparative healthcare systems and health reforms in Asia; payment incentives; physicians’ behaviors, human resources for health, and the public-private partnership in the health sector. She experienced field-work in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Philippines, Korea, and Vietnam. Ngan achieved her Ph.D. degree in health policy and management at Seoul National University College of Medicine. She earned her master degree on public policy at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management, and her bachelor degree on international relations at the Diplomacy Academy of Vietnam.

Ngan Do Kim 2016-2017 Developing Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow 2016-2017 Developing Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow

Seminars

Research Presentations (session 1 of 5) - Bhaskaran, Hayakawa, Takahashi and Yamada

Wednesday, May 3, 2017 | 12:00 PM -Wednesday, May 3, 2017 | 2:30 PM

The format of this presentation is each of the four speakers will have approximately 15 minutes to present their research. This will be followed by a short period of 5-10 minutes for any questions or comments from the audience.

In this session of the Corporate Affiliates Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Hareendra Bhaskaran, Reliance Life Sciences, "Big Data Analytics in Pharmaceutical Marketing"

Big Data has changed the way we manage, analyze and leverage data in any industry. One of the most promising areas where Big Data can be applied to make a change is healthcare. In his research, Bhaskaran investigates the possibility of using big data in marketing of pharmaceutical companies. After analyzing how healthcare analytics have the potential to reduce cost of treatment, predict outbreaks of epidemics, avoid preventable diseases and improve quality of life in general, he explains how adoption of Big Data and analytic capabilities can meet the need of firms in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries.

Takayuki Hayakawa, Japan Patent Office, "Patent System and Genetic Testing"

Genetic testing technology has been developed in recent years along with the progress of biotechnology. The number of DNA patents has been increasing, and it is said that more than 20% of human genes have already been patented. Many academic researchers are opposed to DNA patents and concerned that some companies monopolize the human genes. Under such circumstances, the Supreme Court of the United States judged that the DNA patent is invalid because of patent ineligibility (Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc.). This case gave the impact to the patent practitioners and the biotechnology industry. In his research, Hayakawa investigated this case, the situation of the DNA patent prior to this case, and the influence this case has had on the patent.

Aki Takahashi, Nissoken, "How Design Thinking is Connected to Culture and How Design Thinking Can Become More Widespread in Japan"

Global businesses are rapidly changing and establishing a new dynamic in developing new innovations. As a result, Silicon Valley companies have been successful using the design thinking process from Stanford University. Japanese universities and companies have started to focus on this design thinking method in an effort to understand how to utilize it to create successful innovations and results. However, there are cultural differences between Japan and Silicon Valley where design thinking needs to be further evaluated.

Takahashi’s research focuses on culture and location in adjusting to becoming more innovative. How can design thinking be effective in Japan? How do we overcome the cultural gap in design thinking? How do we change culture in business? In her research, Takahashi addresses these questions and makes suggestions on how design thinking can be more widespread and influential for the success of future businesses in Japan.

Kensaku Yamada, Mitsubishi Electric, "New Technology about the Internet of Things"

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical devices such as smartphone, home electronics, medical instruments, industrial robots and sensors. IoT can improve our life or our work efficiently by collecting and analyzing the data from physical devices. Although the annual growth rate of PC and server shipments, which has been representative of IT business until now, is expected to be negative, devices connected to the network by IoT are expected to have an annual growth rate of 20% or more in the future. Most IT vendors are interested in IoT for expanding their business. In his research, Yamada focuses on the industrial IoT that is introduced by manufacturers. He investigates how manufacturers use IoT and what effect they get by using IoT.

Hareendra Bhaskaran

Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow, 2016-17

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Hareendra Bhaskaran is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2016-17. Bhaskaran has 20 years of experience in handling sales and marketing of pharmaceutical products. Currently, he is head of India Business at Reliance Life Sciences and is responsible for revenue targets, financial collectibles, recruitment & training of field force, identification & launch of new products, and planning & forecasting revenue for future years. Bhaskaran received his degree in life sciences from the University of Madras in 1995.

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Thu, 09/05/2024 - 21:04

Reliance Life Sciences

Takayuki Hayakawa

Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow, 2016-17

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Takayuki Hayakawa is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2016-17. Prior to joining Shorenstein APARC, he served as a Patent Examiner at the Japan Patent Office, where he was in charge of optical devices and medical devices.

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Thu, 09/05/2024 - 21:04

Japan Patent Office

Aki Takahashi

Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow, 2015-17

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Aki Takahashi is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2015-17. Takahashi is the CEO of the Musashisakai Driving School in Tokyo as well as an assistant lecturerer with Nissoken. For over 15 years, she has provided an operational excellence in the Japanese service industry from her experience and research. While at Shorenstein APARC, Takahashi will research the ways Design Thinking is connected to culture and how Design Thinking can become more widespread in Japan.

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Thu, 09/05/2024 - 21:01

Nissoken

Kensaku Yamada

Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow, 2016-17

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Kensaku Yamada is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2016-17. He started his career as a software engineer for Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Tokyo, Japan. Yamada has been engaged in software product development for operating systems and database tools. Recently, he designed a customer's system as a system integrator as well as provided many other companies with hardware products like PCs, servers, and network switches. Yamada graduated from Niigata University with an M.S. in information engineering.

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Thu, 09/05/2024 - 21:09

Mitsubishi Electric

Seminars

FINANCING LONGEVITY: The Economics of Pensions, Health, Long-term Care and Disability Insurance

Monday, April 24, 2017 | 8:30 AM -Monday, April 24, 2017 | 4:30 PM

The Asia Health Policy Program at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), in collaboration with scholars from Stanford Health Policy's Center on Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and the Next World Program, is holding its third annual conference on the economics of ageing. The conference is one of several activities planned in 2017 to mark the 10^th anniversary of the Asia Health Policy Program.

The triumph of longevity can pose a challenge to the fiscal integrity of public and private pension systems and other social support programs disproportionately used by older adults. High-income countries offer lessons – frequently cautionary tales – for low- and middle-income countries about how to design social protection programs to be sustainable in the face of population ageing. Technological change and income inequality interact with population ageing to threaten the sustainability and perceived fairness of conventional financing for many social programs. Promoting longer working lives and savings for retirement are obvious policy priorities; but in many cases the fiscal challenges are even more acute for other social programs, such as insurance systems for medical care, long-term care, and disability. Reform of entitlement programs is also often politically difficult, further highlighting how important it is for developing countries putting in place comprehensive social security systems to take account of the macroeconomic implications of population ageing.

The objective of the conference is to explore the economics of ageing from the perspective of sustainable financing for longer lives. The conference will bring together researchers to present recent empirical and theoretical research on a range of topics in this area.

The first full day of the conference – April 24 – is open to the public. The lunchtime keynote speech on the second day of the conference – April 25 – is also open to the public; the remaining portions of that day are reserved for panelists only to encourage candid conversation in a closed-door setting.

Conference Agenda

April 24

7:45 Breakfast

8:25 Welcome Gi-Wook Shin, Stanford University

Karen Eggleston, Stanford University

Session I: Long-term Care and Intergenerational Support

Chair: Gopi Shah Goda, Stanford University

8:30 – 9:30 “Housing Assets and Access to Long Term Care Services and Supports: Evidence from the Housing Bubble Burst”

Richard Frank, Harvard University

Discussant: Tom Davidoff, University of British Columbia

9:30 – 10:30 “The Demand for Long-Term Care Insurance in Canada”

Pierre-Carl Michaud, HEC Montréal and RAND

Discussant: Chris Tonetti, Stanford Graduate School of Business

10:30 – 10:45 Coffee break

10:45 – 11:45 “The Price of the East Asian Miracle: Generational Cultural Shift and Elderly Suicide”

Hyejin Ku, University College London

Discussant: Hongbin Li, Tsinghua University and Stanford University

Session II:

Co-Chairs: John Shoven and Karen Eggleston, Stanford University

11:45 – 13:45 Lunch

Keynote panel: "The policy challenges of financing longevity: Perspectives from Japan and the US"

Hirotaka Unami, Senior Director for Policy Planning and Research, Minister's Secretariat, Ministry of Finance, Japan

Olivia S. Mitchell, International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor, as well as Professor of Insurance/Risk Management and Business Economics/Policy, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Session III: Financial Planning and Health

Chair: David Canning, Harvard University

14:00 – 15:00 “Cognitive Decline and Household Financial Outcomes at Older Ages”

Marco Angrisani, University of Southern California

Discussant: Kathleen McGarry, UCLA

15:00 – 15:15 Break

15:15 – 16:15 “From Compression to Expansion of Morbidity: Upcoming Challenges for Health Care and Long Term Care in China”

Bei Lu, University of New South Wales

Discussant: Wang Feng, Fudan University and UC Irvine

16:40 Closing

Apri1 25

11:45 – 13:00 Lunch

Policy challenges of financing longevity: Perspectives from Singapore

Kelvin Bryan Tan, Ministry of Health, Singapore

Agenda

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Conferences

Financial Protection in Health: Alternative Framework and Evidence from Vietnam

Monday, April 3, 2017 | 12:00 PM -Monday, April 3, 2017 | 1:30 PM

The venue of this event has been moved to the Okimoto Conference room.

Dr. Ruger, a leading scholar of global and domestic health policy and public health, will speak about global and national health inequities, drawing from her research in Asia --including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Vietnam -- and Africa. With training in political economy, health policy, international relations, comparative social research and law, Dr. Ruger crosses disciplines to reexamine the principles and values that underlie health policy and public health and apply these principles empirically. She created the health capability paradigm, challenging existing approaches and illuminating optimal health policies and she has developed an empirical approach to evaluate public health programs and health policies as they measure up to that paradigm. Dr. Ruger’s scholarship has critically scrutinized the existing global health architecture in order to identify more effective global health policy responses linking public policy and law to global health theory at the global and national levels. Dr. Ruger studies critical health policy and public health problems such as the equity and efficiency of health system access, financing, resource allocation, policy reform and the social determinants of health. Her forthcoming book, Global Health Justice and Governance (OUP, in press), advances a theory of global health justice and governance called provincial globalism.

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Dr. Ruger received a bachelor’s degree in the honors program in political economy from the University of California-Berkeley, master’s degrees from Oxford University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Yale University, a doctoral degree from Harvard University, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard's Center for Population and Development. Dr. Ruger has authored over 100 publications and is internationally recognized for her leadership and work, which has been cited by the United Nations, World Bank, World Health Organization and United States Government. She has been Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on awards from the National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center, Hewlett Foundation, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete Global Health Justice and Governance (OUP, in press).

Other papers:

1. Coping with Health Care Expenses Among Poor Households: Evidence from a Rural Commune in Vietnam: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1435832

2. Impact of Health Insurance on Health Care Treatment and Cost in Vietnam: A Health Capability Approach to Financial Protection: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1515733

3. Effect of Health Expenses on Household Capabilities and Resource Allocation in a Rural Commune in Vietnam: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1435820

4. The Changing Donor Landscape in Health Sector Aid to Vietnam: A Qualitative Case Study: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615001719

5. An Alternative Framework for Analyzing Financial Protection in Health: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2139693

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Jennifer Prah Ruger Amartya Sen Professor of Health Equity, Economics, and Policy, School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania

Seminars

Shorenstein APARC selects two postdoctoral fellows for 2017-18 academic year

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Thu, 02/09/2017 - 12:00

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The Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), in pursuit of training the next generation of scholars on contemporary Asia, has selected two postdoctoral fellows for the 2017-18 academic year. The fellows will begin their year of academic study and research at Stanford this fall.

Shorenstein APARC has for more than a decade sponsored numerous junior scholars who come to the university to work closely with Stanford faculty, develop their dissertations for publication, participate in workshops and seminars, and present their research to the broader community.

The 2017-18 cohort includes two Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellows; they carry a broad range of interests from labor migration policy in China to regional institutions in East Asia. Their bios and research plans are listed below:

H. Seung Cho is completing his doctorate at Columbia University’s Department of Political Science. He researches U.S. and Chinese foreign policy toward East Asia’s regional institutions with a broader interest in U.S.-China relations, the political economy of East Asia and qualitative research methods. His dissertation probes the popular narrative that United States and China are competing over East Asia’s regional architecture, arguing that mutual misperception and security dilemma dynamics also play out in the politics of regional institution building. To explore this phenomenon, Seung has conducted extensive fieldwork in Beijing, Jakarta, Seoul and Washington, D.C. At Shorenstein APARC, Seung will be developing his dissertation into a book manuscript while looking to further examine the relationship between the politics of East Asia’s multilateral security institutions and their perceived lack of effectiveness. Previously, Seung was a predoctoral fellow at Peking University’s School of International Studies from 2014-16. Prior to starting his doctoral studies, he also served in South Korean military intelligence as part of the two-year national service. Seung holds a Bachelor of Science in government and economics and Master of Science in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Samantha Vortherms is a doctoral candidate in the University of Wisconsin – Madison Department of Political Science. Her research focuses on comparative political economy, development, social welfare and research methodology. Her dissertation examines subnational variation in access to citizenship rights in China through the household registration system. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education through the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad and the Social Science Research Council's Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, among others. At Shorenstein APARC, Sam will work on converting her dissertation to a book manuscript and advance her post-dissertation project on the role of the firm in labor migration policies. Before going to Wisconsin, Sam received her Master of Arts in international relations at the University of Chicago, Artium Magister in public policy from University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Richmond. From 2014-16, she was a visiting research fellow at the National School of Development's China Center for Health Economics Research at Peking University.

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Is Knowing Half the Battle? Behavioral Responses to Risk Information from the National Health Screening Program in Korea

Thursday, February 9, 2017 | 12:00 PM -Thursday, February 9, 2017 | 1:30 PM

The benefits of screening depend on whether information changes individual behaviors. We study the National Health Screening Program in Korea which provides free general health screening to individuals aged over 40. We apply a regression discontinuity design to estimate behavioral responses to information about one’s risk classifications for diabetes, obesity, and high cholesterol. We find evidence of weight loss around the high risk threshold for diabetes, where risk information is combined with prompting for a secondary examination and medical treatment. However, we find no differences around other risk classification thresholds, where risk information is not combined with such prompting.

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Hyuncheol Bryant Kim is an applied micro-economist with broad interests in health economics, development economics, public economics, education economics, and labor economics. The main goal of Prof.Kim's research is to understand the impact and behavioral responses to the public intervention programs in both developed and developing countries. Prof.Kim has been investigating various public intervention programs such as cancer screening, general health screening, long-term care insurance, girls' education support program, HIV/AIDS prevention programs such as male circumcision and HIV testing, mother and child health program as well as job opportunity and internship program on employment.

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Hyuncheol Bryant Kim Lois and Mel Tukman Assistant Professor, Department of Policy Analysis and Management (PAM), Cornell University

Seminars

Shorenstein APARC colloquia put India into focus

Read more about Shorenstein APARC colloquia put India into focus

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Tue, 01/10/2017 - 12:00

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India is a focus of colloquia at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center during the next few months. A seminar series entitled “A New India? The Impact of 25 Years of Reform” will explore the country’s economic growth and efforts to revitalize its foreign relations.

The colloquia, co-sponsored by Stanford’s Center for South Asia, will include lectures from scholars, policymakers and other thought leaders on India’s democratic system and society, and provide a forum to discuss how the country can overcome obstacles to long-term prosperity.

Kathleen Stephens, the William J. Perry Fellow at Shorenstein APARC and former U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea, has organized and will moderate the colloquia. She served as the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi in 2014.

Stephens said, “Now is the right time and Stanford is the right place for a renewed focus on India, its daunting challenges and its extraordinary potential. This series will consider the strategic bet U.S. policymakers have made on India's rise, and India's own aspirations to play a bigger global role, particularly in Asia.

“In this series and beyond, we want to knit together the expertise and resources at Stanford and in Silicon Valley with policy leaders from India and elsewhere to expand our understanding of India in all its contemporary complexity and importance.”

From 1999 to 2013, Shorenstein APARC had a prolific initiative that supported scholarly work related to South Asia. The center envisions the colloquia will be some of many activities about the region going forward.

A listing of the seminars and related multimedia can be accessed here; more information will be added as it becomes available.

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Universal Long-term Care Insurance Program: South Korea’s Experience

Tuesday, January 31, 2017 | 12:00 PM -Tuesday, January 31, 2017 | 1:30 PM

South Korea, the most rapidly aging society in the world, introduced a public long-term care insurance (LTCI) program with universal coverage in 2008. This presentation will begin with the socioeconomic and political context of the introduction of the LTCI and explain the finance and provision of LTCI in Korea, compared to the LTCIs of Germany and Japan. It will provide recent evidence on the performance of the LTCI along with its prospects and lessons for other countries.

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Hongsoo Kim is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Public Health at Seoul National University (SNU), South Korea, and a 2016-2017 Fulbright Visiting Scholar & Takemi Fellow in International Health at Harvard School of Public Health, United States. Her research areas include aging and health policy, long-term care systems, and health system performance assessment. She is currently involved the Comparative Diabetes Net Value Project led by Dr. Karen Eggleston at Stanford University. She was formerly the scientific committee chair of the Korean Academy of Long-term Care, the Korean Gerontological Society, and the Korean Society of Health Policy and Administration. She received her PhD from New York University, where she worked as assistant professor before she joined SNU.

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Hongsoo Kim Fulbright Scholar & Takemi Fellow at Harvard School of Public Health, U.S.; Associate Professor at Seoul National University Graduate School of Public Health, South Korea

Seminars

One-Child Policy, Marriage Distortion, and Welfare Loss

Tuesday, January 17, 2017 | 12:00 PM -Tuesday, January 17, 2017 | 1:30 PM

This seminar will discuss the marriage distortion and the associated welfare loss caused by the One-Child Policy (OCP) in China. Using the variation in the ethnicity-specific assigned birth quotas and different fertility penalties across provinces over time, we first show that the OCP induced a significantly higher unmarried rate and more interethnic marriages. Using sufficient statistics approach, we then derive a formula for the social welfare loss caused by the OCPinduced lower fertility and marriage distortion, and it only depends on the estimated reducedform elasticities. Our estimates suggest that the associated welfare loss is around 3.7 percent of annual household income, with marriage distortion contributing 30 percent of this. These findings highlight the unintended behavioral responses to public policies and corresponding social consequences.

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Yi Zhou is a PhD candidate in Demography at University of California – Berkeley. His research interests include Economic Demography, Formal Demography and Health Economics. He received a M.A. in Economics and a B.B.A. in Accounting from Peking University."

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Yi Zhou Department of Demography, University of California, Berkeley

Seminars