Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot. If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch.
Information, education, and health behaviours: evidence from the MMR vaccine autism controversy. Health Economics [PubMed] Published 2nd May 2018
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published (in the Lancet) his infamous and later retracted research purportedly linking the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Despite the thorough debunking and exposure of academic skulduggery, a noxious cloud of misinformation remained in the public mind, particularly in the US. This study examined several facets of the MMR fake news including: what impact did this have on vaccine uptake in the US (both MMR and other vaccines); how did state level variation in media coverage impact uptake; and what role did education play in subsequent decisions about whether to vaccinate or not. This study harnessed the National Immunization Survey from 1995 to 2006 to answer these questions. This is a yearly dataset of over 200,000 children aged between 19 to 35 months with detailed information on not just immunisation, but also maternal education, income and other sociodemographics. The NewsLibrary database was used to identify stories published in national and state media relating to vaccines and autism. Various regression methods were implemented to examine these data. The paper found that, unsurprisingly, for the year following the Wakefield publication the MMR vaccine take-up declined by between 1.1%-1.5% (notably less than 3% in the UK), likewise this fall in take-up spilled over into other vaccines take-up. The most interesting finding related to education: MMR take-up for children of college-educated mothers declined significantly compared to those without a degree. This can be explained by the education gradient where more-educated individuals absorb and respond to health information more quickly. However, in the US, this continued for many years beyond 2003 despite proliferation of research refuting the autism-MMR link. This contrasts to the UK where educational link closed soon after the findings were refuted, that is, in the UK, the educated responded to the new information refuting the MMR-Autism link. In the US, despite the research being debunked, MMR uptake was lower in the children of those with higher levels of education for many more years. The author speculates that this contrast to the UK may be a result of the media influencing parents’ decisions. Whilst the media buzz in the UK peaked in 2002, it had largely subsided by 2003. In the US however, the media attention was constant, if not increasing till 2006, and so this may have been the reason the link remained within the US. So, we have Andrew Wakefield and arguably fearmongering media to blame for causing a long-term reduction in MMR take-up in the US. Overall, an interesting study leaning on multiple datasets that could be of interest for those working with big data.
Can social care needs and well-being be explained by the EQ-5D? Analysis of the Health Survey for England. Value in Health Published 23rd May 2018
There is increasing discussion about integrating health and social care to provide a more integrated approach to fulfilling health and social care needs. This creates challenges for health economists and decision makers when allocating resources, particularly when comparing benefits from different sectors. NICE itself recognises that the EQ-5D may be inappropriate in some situations. With the likes of ASCOT, ICECAP and WEMWBS frequenting the health economics world this isn’t an unknown issue. To better understand the relationship between health and social care measures, this EuroQol Foundation funded study examined the relationship between social care needs as measured by the Barthel Index, well-being measured using WEMWBS and also the GGH-12, and the EQ-5D as the measure of health. Data was obtained through the Health Survey for England (HSE) and contained 3354 individuals aged over 65 years. Unsurprisingly the authors found that higher health and wellbeing scores were associated with an increased probability of no social care needs. Those who are healthier or at higher levels of wellbeing are less likely to need social care. Of all the instruments, it was the self-care and the pain/discomfort dimensions of the EQ-5D that were most strongly associated with the need for social care. No GHQ-12 dimensions were statistically significant, and for the WEMWBS only the ‘been feeling useful’ and ‘had energy to spare’ were statistically significantly associated with social care need. The authors also investigated various other associations between the measures with many unsurprising findings e.g. EQ-5D anxiety/depression dimension was negatively associated with wellbeing as measured using the GHQ-12. Although the findings are favourable for the EQ-5D in terms of it capturing to some extent social care needs, there is clearly still a gap whereby some outcomes are not necessarily captured. Considering this, the authors suggest that it might be appropriate to strap on an extra dimension to the EQ-5D (known as a ‘bolt on’) to better capture important ‘other’ dimensions, for example, to capture dignity or any other important social care outcomes. Of course, a significant limitation with this paper relates to the measures available in the data. Measures such as ASCOT and ICECAP have been developed and operationalised for economic evaluation with social care in mind, and a comparison against these would have been more informative.
The health benefits of a targeted cash transfer: the UK Winter Fuel Payment. Health Economics [PubMed] [RePEc] Published 9th May 2018
In the UK, each winter is accompanied by an increase in mortality, often known as ‘excess winter mortality’ (EWM). To combat this, the UK introduced the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP), the purpose of the WFP is an unconditional cash transfer to households containing an older person (those most vulnerable to EWM) above the female state pension age with the intent for this to used to help the elderly deal with the cost of keeping their dwelling warm. The purpose of this paper was to examine whether the WFP policy has improved the health of elderly people. The authors use the Health Surveys for England (HSE), the Scottish health Survey (SHeS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and employ a regression discontinuity design to estimate causal effects of the WFP. To measure impact (benefit) they focus on circulatory and respiratory illness as measured by: self-reports of chest infection, nurse measured hypertension, and two blood biomarkers for infection and inflammation. The authors found that for those living in a household receiving the payment there was a 6% point reduction (p<0.01) in the incidence of high levels of serum fibrinogen (biomarker) which are considered to be a marker of current infection and are associated with chronic pulmonary disease. For the other health outcomes, although positive, the estimated effects were less robust and not statistically significant. The authors investigated the impact of increasing the age of eligibility for the WFP (in line with the increase of women’s pension age). Their findings suggest there may be some health cost associated with the increase in age of eligibility for WFP. To surmise, the paper highlights that there may be some health benefits from the receipt of the WFP. What it doesn’t however consider is opportunity cost. With WFP costing about £2 billion per year, as a health economist, I can’t help but wonder if the money could have been better spent through other avenues.
Credits
