Assessing Unit‐Price Related Remifentanil Choice In Rhesus Monkeys

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96725/1/jeab.2006.108.05.pd

Quantifying the Impact of Public Perceptions on Vaccine Acceptance Using Behavioral Economics

This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of public perceptions of vaccine safety and efficacy on intent to seek COVID-19 vaccination using hypothetical vaccine acceptance scenarios. The behavioral economic methodology could be used to inform future public health vaccination campaigns designed to influence public perceptions and improve public acceptance of the vaccine. In June 2020, 534 respondents completed online validated behavioral economic procedures adapted to evaluate COVID-19 vaccine demand in relation to a hypothetical development process and efficacy. An exponential demand function was used to describe the proportion of participants accepting the vaccine at each efficacy. Linear mixed effect models evaluated development process and individual characteristic effects on minimum required vaccine efficacy required for vaccine acceptance. The rapid development process scenario increased the rate of decline in acceptance with reductions in efficacy. At 50% efficacy, 68.8% of respondents would seek the standard vaccine, and 58.8% would seek the rapid developed vaccine. Rapid vaccine development increased the minimum required efficacy for vaccine acceptance by over 9 percentage points, γ = 9.36, p < 0.001. Past-3-year flu vaccination, γ = −23.00, p < 0.001, and male respondents, γ = −4.98, p = 0.037, accepted lower efficacy. Respondents reporting greater conspiracy beliefs, γ = 0.39, p < 0.001, and political conservatism, γ = 0.32, p < 0.001, required higher efficacy. Male, γ = −4.43, p = 0.013, and more conservative, γ = −0.09, p = 0.039, respondents showed smaller changes in minimum required efficacy by development process. Information on the vaccine development process, vaccine efficacy, and individual differences impact the proportion of respondents reporting COVID-19 vaccination intentions. Behavioral economics provides an empirical method to estimate vaccine demand to target subpopulations resistant to vaccination

Developing a Webtool for Fatigue in Emergency Medical Services Scheduling

DTNH2215C00029On behalf of NHTSA, the National Association of State EMS Officials had the Institutes for Behavior Resources develop a publicly and freely available website tool based on a biomathematical model of fatigue that applies to typical shift configurations/lengths among EMS personnel. The purpose of this webtool is to help agencies create and evaluate work schedules that minimize fatigu

Behavioral economic methods to inform infectious disease response: Prevention, testing, and vaccination in the COVID-19 pandemic

The role of human behavior to thwart transmission of infectious diseases like COVID-19 is evident. Psychological and behavioral science are key areas to understand decision-making processes underlying engagement in preventive health behaviors. Here we adapt well validated methods from behavioral economic discounting and demand frameworks to evaluate variables (e.g., delay, cost, probability) known to impact health behavior engagement. We examine the contribution of these mechanisms within a broader response class of behaviors reflecting adherence to public health recommendations made during the COVID-19 pandemic. Four crowdsourced samples (total N = 1,366) completed individual experiments probing a response class including social (physical) distancing, facemask wearing, COVID-19 testing, and COVID-19 vaccination. We also measure the extent to which choice architecture manipulations (e.g., framing, opt-in/opt-out) may promote (or discourage) behavior engagement. We find that people are more likely to socially distance when specified activities are framed as high risk, that facemask use during social interaction decreases systematically with greater social relationship, that describing delay until testing (rather than delay until results) increases testing likelihood, and that framing vaccine safety in a positive valence improves vaccine acceptance. These findings collectively emphasize the flexibility of methods from diverse areas of behavioral science for informing public health crisis management

Normalized demand for drugs and other reinforcers.

The concepts of behavioral economics have proven to be useful for understanding the environmental control of overall levels of responding for a variety of commodities, including reinforcement by drug self-administration. These general concepts have implications for the assessment of abuse liability and drug abuse intervention and the formulation of public policy on drug abuse. An essential requirement is the ability to compare the demand for different drugs directly in order to assess relative abuse liability, and to compare demand for the same drug under different environmental and biological interventions to assess their ability to reduce demand. Until now, such comparisons were hampered by the confounding effect of varying drug doses and potencies that prevent quantitative comparisons of demand elasticity--sensitivity of consumption and responding to the constraint of price (effort). In this paper we describe a procedure to normalize demand-curve analysis that permits dose- and potency-independent comparisons of demand across drugs. The procedure is shown to be effective for comparing drug demand within and across the drug classes. The technique permits a quantitative ordering of demand that is consistent with the peak levels of responding maintained by the drugs. The same technique is generalized for the comparison of other types of reinforcers under different biological conditions

Technical, Regulatory, Economic, and Trust Issues Preventing Successful Integration of Sensors into the Mainstream Consumer Wearables Market

Sensors that track physiological biomarkers of health must be successfully incorporated into a fieldable, wearable device if they are to revolutionize the management of remote patient care and preventative medicine. This perspective article discusses logistical considerations that may impede the process of adapting a body-worn laboratory sensor into a commercial-integrated health monitoring system with a focus on examples from sleep tracking technology

Behavioral economics of drug self-administration and drug abuse policy.

The concepts of behavioral economics have proven useful for understanding the environmental control of overall levels of responding for a variety of commodities, including reinforcement by drug self-administration. These general concepts are summarized for application to the analysis of drug-reinforced behavior and proposed as the basis for future applications. This behavioral agenda includes the assessment of abuse liability, the assay of drug-reinforcer interactions, the design of drug abuse interventions, and the formulation of drug abuse public policy. These separate domains of investigation are described as part of an overall strategy for designing model projects to control drug use and testing public policy initiatives

Tests of Behavioral-Economic Assessments of Relative Reinforcer Efficacy: Economic Substitutes

This experiment was conducted to test predictions of two behavioral-economic approaches to quantifying relative reinforcer efficacy. According to the first of these approaches, characteristics of averaged normalized demand curves may be used to predict progressive-ratio breakpoints and peak responding. The second approach, the demand analysis, rejects the concept of reinforcer efficacy, arguing instead that traditional measures of relative reinforcer efficacy (breakpoint, peak response rate, and choice) correspond to specific characteristics of non-normalized demand curves. The accuracy of these predictions was evaluated in rats’ responding for food or fat: two reinforcers known to function as partial substitutes. Consistent with the first approach, predicted peak normalized response output values (Omax) obtained under single-schedule conditions ordinally predicted progressive-ratio breakpoints and peak responding. Predictions of the demand analysis had mixed success. Pmax and Omax were significantly correlated with PR breakpoints and peak responding (respectively) when fat, but not when food, was the reinforcer. Relative consumption of food and fat under single schedules of reinforcement did not predict preference better than chance. The normalized demand analysis is supplemented with the economic concept of diminishing marginal utility, to predict preference shifts across the range of food and fat prices examined