Disparities in Hospital Services Utilization Among Patients with Mental Health Issues: A Statewide Example Examining Insurance Status and Race Factors from 1999-2010

There exist many disconnects between the mental and general health care sectors. However, a goal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 is to change this by improving insurance access and the intersection of mental and general health care. As insurance status intersects with race, the present study examines how race, insurance status, and hospital mental health services utilization differ across groups within the state of New Jersey. The present study aims to determine trends in hospital mental health care utilization by insurance status and race from 1999 to 2010. The rate of self-pay for mental health disorders in the Black population was significantly higher than the rate for Whites and Asians during this period. However, though Asian mental health utilization increased the most over the 11-year period, the Asian population had the slowest growth in self-pay rates. ANOVA tests demonstrated significant differences in the rate of self-pay mental health cases between race groups (

Toward Better Management of Flood Losses: Flood Insurance in a Wetter World

Flood is the most frequent and costly of U.S. natural disasters with losses expected to increase due to climate change. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) mandates flood insurance purchase for properties with federally backed mortgages in the 100-year floodplain. We propose that mandatory flood insurance purchase be extended to all property in the 500-year floodplain. Following flood events, payments would be directly provided for more properties that suffer flood loss, reducing federal disaster aid spending. The mandate could put more pressure on local governments to increase their Community Rating System score, such as through infrastructure investments and management practices that reduce flood risk. The expanded requirement would not address the inaccuracies of maps used to price flood insurance (and used by local governments to make long-term planning decisions) but may affect floodplain development by making more explicit the costs and risks of building and living in high-risk areas

Can Strategic Risk Management Contribute to Enterprise Risk Management? A Strategic Management Perspective

Within the discipline of enterprise risk management (ERM), strategic risk management (SRM) has become a subject of increasing interest to practitioners and academics. To our knowledge, the term “strategic risk management” first appeared in the management literature in 1985 and 1986 (Jammine, 1985; Figenbaum & Thomas, 1986) and in the academic finance literature in 1990 (Rawls and Smithson, 1990), although early usage of the term did not clearly relate to later conceptions. The phrase has been in use even longer than ERM (Bromiley, McShane, Nair, and Rustambekov, 2014). Even with this longevity, the meaning of the term remains unclear, with confusion increasing with the advent of ERM. For example, does SRM mean the management of a specific category of risks known as “strategic risks” (AICPCU, 2013) or does SRM mean strategic actions/responses taken to mitigate major uncertainties facing the enterprise? Can any type of risk potentially become a strategic risk, or are only certain types of risk strategic? Is SRM a separate type of risk management or a subset of ERM

Risk and System-of-Systems: Toward a Unified Concept

The scope of this paper is the survey of both fundamental and most recent publications in system-of-systems, business and insurance, as well as risk analysis, modeling, and management for the purpose of better describing the concept of risk in recognition of emergence and complexity which characterizes many systems within the concern of engineering and business managers. The ultimate goal is to provide engineering and business managers the necessary perspective on the concept of risk and in its management for the next generation of sustainable systems - including various descriptions of risk and discussion of the relevance of properties of system-of-systems to sustainable management of risks in engineered systems. The result shows that to address a truly sustainable management of risk, there has to be a change in paradigm from traditional description of risk to that of a more holistic perspective

Risk Allocation Across the Enterprise: Evidence From the Insurance Industry

Financial researchers initially regarded hedging activities as a means to reduce total firm risk, which often is defined in terms of cash flow volatility. More recently, researchers have focused on the strategic allocation of risk. Direct tests of risk allocation have been problematic, however, because hedging data are rarely available and, when available, are specific only to a single operation of the firm, such as bank lending. In this study, we exploit unique data from the insurance industry that allows us to observe hedging proxies for both investment and insurance underwriting risks and test the risk allocation hypothesis developed in the finance literature. We also conduct separate examinations of life-health and property-casualty insurers, which reveal differences in the risks and hedging activities of these two types of insurers

System of Systems Perspective on Risk: Towards a Unified Concept

Many systems and projects that concern systems engineers, engineering managers, and business managers today can be defined as system of systems (SoS), which are described as ambiguous, uncertain and dynamic, among others. In addition to the traditional view on risk identification, analysis and management, the concept of risk should be considered with respect to these systems of systems. The purpose of this paper is to analyse both fundamental concepts and recent publications in system of systems, business and engineering management, as well as risk analysis, modelling, and management for the purpose of better describing the concept of risk with respect to system of systems. The ultimate goal is to provide engineering and business managers the necessary perspective on the concept of risk and its management for the next generation of systems – including various descriptions of risk and discussion of the relevance of properties of system of systems to sustainable management of risks in engineered systems. To achieve a truly sustainable management of risk, there has to be a change in paradigm from a traditional description of risk to that of a more holistic perspective

Risk Allocation across the Enterprise: Evidence from the Insurance Industry

Financial researchers initially regarded hedging activities as a means to reduce total firm risk, which often is defined in terms of cash flow volatility. More recently, researchers have focused on the strategic allocation of risk. Direct tests of risk allocation have been problematic, however, because hedging data are rarely available and, when available, are specific only to a single operation of the firm, such as bank lending. In this study, we exploit unique data from the insurance industry that allows us to observe hedging proxies for both investment and insurance underwriting risks and test the risk allocation hypothesis developed in the finance literature. We also conduct separate examinations of life-health and property-casualty insurers, which reveal differences in the risks and hedging activities of these two types of insurers

Delayed-Bang Approach Towards More Sustainable Critical Infrastructure Risk Management

This article describes the Delayed Bang Approach for determining the value of risk management alternatives in critical infrastructure security. The discussion includes (1) the need for sustainable risk management (2) the importance of time valuation in evaluating competing loss prevention and loss reduction alternatives, (3) the convergence of deterministic engineering economics, survivability analysis, and probabilistic analysis, and (4) hypothetical examples of the Delayed-Bang Approach and significance towards more sustainable risk management