The impact of spousal bereavement on self-assessed health status: evidence from the Taiwanese elderly population

経済学 / EconomicsBereavement is a grieved and inevitable event in our life. For an aging society, the incidence of spousal bereavement and parental bereavement is higher than the other kinds of bereavement events. This study employs the difference-in-differences (DiD) strategy and the Taiwanese panel Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly (SHLSE) to evaluate the impact of losing a spouse on well-being measured by self-assessed health status, depression, and life satisfaction.The results show that spousal bereavement causes substantial depression and loss in life satisfaction. The spousal bereavement impact increases depression by 1.46 CES-D points and reduces life satisfaction by 0.71 points. The decay effect of time is not observed in this study. We also examine the demographic differences of the spousal bereavement impact and find that the gap in life satisfaction between the bereaved who received more than 9 years education and the bereaved who received 9 years or less is 1.43 points, which implies that spousal bereavement causes less impact on more educated people in terms of life satisfaction. The increase in depression for the bereaved in a larger household is smaller than that for those in a small household by 2.75 CES-D points but it is weakly significant.The self-reported health outcomes are the intermediate outcomes between spousal bereavement and societal costs such as healthcare utilisation and death. The association between self-reported health status and mortality and health utilization has been well documented by literature. Thus, our results also provide the policy insight that giving proper interventions on the onset of bereavement may cause less societal costs afterwards.http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/leon_gonzalez_roberto

Surgical trial in traumatic intracerebral haemorrhage (STITCH) : A randomised controlled trial of early surgery compared with Initial conservative treatment

Funding This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Obesity prevention and personal responsibility: the case of front-of-pack food labelling in Australia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In Australia, the food industry and public health groups are locked in serious struggle for regulatory influence over the terms of front-of-pack food labelling. Clear, unambiguous labelling of the nutritional content of pre-packaged foods and of standardized food items sold in chain restaurants is consistent with the prevailing philosophy of 'personal responsibility'. An interpretive, front-of-pack labelling scheme has the capacity to encourage healthier patterns of eating, and to be a catalyst for improvements in the nutritional quality of food products through re-formulation. On the other hand, the strength of opposition of the Australian Food and Grocery Council to 'Traffic Light Labelling', and its efforts to promote a non-interpretive, voluntary scheme, invite the interpretation that the food industry is resistant to any reforms that could destabilise current (unhealthy) purchasing patterns and the revenues they represent.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This article argues that although policies that aim to educate consumers about the nutritional content of food are welcome, they are only one part of a broader basket of policies that are needed to make progress on obesity prevention and public health nutrition. However, to the extent that food labelling has the capacity to inform and empower consumers to make healthier choices - and to be a catalyst for improving the nutritional quality of commercial recipes - it has an important role to play. Furthermore, given the dietary impact of meals eaten in fast food and franchise restaurants, interpretive labelling requirements should not be restricted to pre-packaged foods.</p> <p>Summary</p> <p>Food industry resistance to an interpretive food labelling scheme is an important test for government, and a case study of how self-interest prompts industry to promote weaker, voluntary schemes that pre-empt and undermine progressive public health regulation.</p

Dataset for "Freedom of information (FOI) as a data collection tool for social scientists."

The dataset and code contains the analysis of "Freedom of information (FOI) as a data collection tool for social scientists" which evaluates a method of generating a unique dataset that has been underused - a Freedom of Information (FOI) request

Dataset for "A Computer-Based Incentivized Food Basket Choice Tool: Presentation and Evaluation"

This study is part of a larger project funded by the European Union and involving leading universities across Europe, which the aim of understanding the drivers of nutritional choices. The project involves scientists from different disciplines such as neuroscience, psychology and economics. This particular study aims at understanding dietary choices and the link between nutrition and health. The data described here contains the variables used to produce the results in “A Computer-Based Incentivized Food Basket Choice Tool: Presentation and Evaluation” published in PLOS ONE

Who is responsible for providing care? Investigating the role of care tasks and past experiences in a cross-sectional survey in the Netherlands

Abstract Background Many countries face substitution from formal to informal care. It is essential that a sufficient number of caregivers, such as family, friends or neighbors, are willing and able to lend care to address the needs of ill or elderly persons. We investigated whether the general public, who might become caregivers in the future, and current informal caregivers align with the shift to more informal caregiving. Methods We studied the views on the responsibility for care of the general public versus the government, and whether these views differed among groups with diverse past experiences with care in terms of own health problems or previous caregiving activities. Data (n = 1097) was collected among the Dutch Health Care Consumer Panel with a survey in October 2015. Multivariate analyses of the views on responsibility for care in general and for different types of care were performed using (i) health, (ii) informal care, and (iii) general background characteristics, among a sample of the general public and among a subgroup of current caregivers. Results The majority (67%) of the respondents would be willing to provide informal care in the future, when necessary. Respondents were more willing to provide support tasks than personal or nursing care activities. Among current caregivers, views on responsibility for care were associated with their past experience. Experiencing less burden of caregiving was associated with perceiving the general public as more responsible for personal or nursing care. Conclusions The results of this study show that substitution from formal to informal care is more in line with public views when support activities are concerned than personal or nursing care. In addition, burdened caregivers also consider the government more responsible for personal or nursing care. When handing over care tasks to the public domain a critical view is needed on which care tasks are most appropriate for this

Replication data for: Making Case-Based Decision Theory Directly Observable

Case-based decision theory (CBDT) provided a new way of revealing preferences, with decisions under uncertainty determined by similarities with cases in memory. This paper introduces a method to measure CBDT that requires no commitment to parametric families and that relates directly to decisions. Thus, CBDT becomes directly observable and can be used in prescriptive applications. Two experiments on real estate investments demonstrate the feasibility of our method. Our implementation of real incentives not only avoids the income effect, but also avoids interactions between different memories. We confirm CBDT's predictions except for one violation of separability of cases in memory