Pascal Geldsetzer, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Primary Care and Population Health
Title: Regression Discontinuity in Electronic Health Record Data
Abstract: Regression discontinuity in electronic health record (EHR) data combines the main advantage of randomized controlled trials (causal inference without needing to adjust for confounders) with the large size, low cost, and representativeness of observational studies in routinely collected medical data. Regression discontinuity could be an important tool to help clinical medicine move away from a “one size fits all” approach because, along with the increasing size and availability of EHR data, it would allow for a rigorous examination of how treatment effects vary across highly granular patient subgroups. In addition, given the broad range of health outcomes recorded in EHR data, this design could be used to systematically test for a wide range of unexpected beneficial and adverse health effects of different treatments. I will talk about the broad motivation for this research and discuss examples from some of our ongoing work in this area. If there is time, I will also discuss some of my ongoing research on improving healthcare services for chronic conditions in low- and middle-income country settings.
Zoom Meeting
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Alyce S. Adams, PhD
Professor of Medicine, Stanford's Center for Health Policy & Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research
Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health in the Stanford School of Medicine
Associate Director for Health Equity and Community Engagement in the Stanford Cancer Institute
Title: Health Policy and the Fight for Equitable Healthcare Outcomes: Why Access Isn’t Enough
Abstract: Using evidence from evaluations of natural experiments, Alyce Adams will discuss the intended and unintended consequences of changes in prescription drug policy at the state and federal level of low income and minority individuals with multiple chronic conditions. We will explore the potential for policy effects to have an immediate and dramatic increase in access to clinically essential treatments. However, she will also discuss where such policies can widen, rather than reduce disparities in treatment. We concluded that increasing access (while critical) is not sufficient to address inequities in treatment use and outcomes among high risk populations. Importantly, new strategies are needed to inform the design of policy interventions that promote access, while simultaneously advancing health equity.
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Alyce Adams is the inaugural Stanford Medicine Innovation Professor and Professor of Health Policy, Epidemiology and Population Health and of Pediatrics (by Courtesy). She also serves as Associate Chair for Community Outreach and Engagement for Stanford Health Policy, and as Associate Director for Partnership and Community Engagement in the Stanford Cancer Institute. Focusing on pharmaceutical treatments for cancer and diabetes, Dr. Adams' research evaluates health system and policy level interventions to improve access, balance the benefits and harms of treatment, improve patient-valued outcomes, and reduce disparities.
"At a time when every other major economy is shrinking, China announced in late January that its GDP grew 2.3 percent in 2020. Beneath that impressive achievement, however, lies a very unbalanced recovery: As in the past, Beijing relied heavily on state investment and a state-led push for higher industrial production, while private investment and consumer spending remained weak. Easy credit to fuel growth has likely formed even more so-called zombie companies with little prospect of future profitability and filled the books of Chinese banks with even more bad loans.
That much is familiar to many who have taken a closer look at China’s skewed model for economic growth. What’s much less well known is the disproportionate burden of the COVID-19-induced downturn that has fallen on rural Chinese, including the 290 million migrant workers with rural hukou (household registrations) who work in cities throughout China. Lockdowns forced by the pandemic paralyzed economic sectors where many migrants work, such as services and retail. According to one estimate, Chinese migrant workers lost about $100 billion in wages that they are unlikely ever to recover.
Among migrant workers and the underdeveloped rural communities that depend on the wages they send home, a quiet crisis is taking place—with potentially dramatic consequences for China’s future growth. Despite what the GDP number suggests about the country’s successful handling of the pandemic, China’s longer-term economic risks have only grown—and are a direct result of the crisis in rural China. As Stanford University researchers Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell document in their meticulously researched book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, hundreds of millions of rural Chinese face a dangerous lack of human capital and suffer from pervasive health problems, including widespread iron-deficiency anemia, uncorrected myopia, and parasitic intestinal worms. Exacerbated by the pandemic, China’s rural crisis remains largely invisible to outside observers, and even to many Chinese."
Chorzempa & Huang write on China's rural human capital crisis stating that "no country with China's vast education and public health problems has ever broken out of the ranks of middle-income countries." The article references FSI Senior Fellow and SCCEI Director Scott Rozelle's book "Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise" throughout.
John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building, 366 Galvez Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6015
Hongbin Li is the Co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).
Hongbin obtained Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He also founded and served as the Executive Associate Director of the China Social and Economic Data Center at Tsinghua University. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.
Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics and co-author of the forthcoming book, “The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China” published by Harvard University Press.
Zoom Meeting
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Encina Commons, Room 201
615 Crothers Way Stanford, CA 94305-6006
Executive Assistant: Soomin Li, soominli@stanford.edu
Phone: (650) 725-9911
Douglas K. Owens is the Henry J. Kaiser, Jr. Professor, Chair of the Department of Health Policy in the Stanford University School of Medicine and Director of the Center for Health Policy (CHP) in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He is a general internist, a Professor of Management Science and Engineering (by courtesy), at Stanford University; and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Owens' research includes the application of decision theory to clinical and health policy problems; clinical decision making; methods for developing clinical guidelines; decision support; comparative effectiveness; modeling substance use and infectious diseases; cardiovascular disease; patient-centered decision making; assessing the value of health care services, including cost-effectiveness analysis; quality of care; and evidence synthesis.
Owens chaired the Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians for four years. The guideline committee develops clinical guidelines that are used widely and are published regularly in the Annals of Internal Medicine. He was a member and then Vice-Chair and Chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which develops national guidelines on preventive care, including guidelines for screening for breast, colorectal, prostate, and lung cancer. He has helped lead the development of more than 50 national guidelines on treatment and prevention. He also was a member of the Second Panel on Cost Effectiveness in Health and Medicine, which developed guidelines for the conduct of cost-effectiveness analyses.
Owens also directed the Stanford-UCSF Evidence-based Practice Center. He co-directs the Stanford Health Services Research Program, and previously directed the VA Physician Fellowship in Health Services Research, and the VA Postdoctoral Informatics Fellowship Program.
Owens received a BS and an MS from Stanford University, and an MD from the University of California-San Francisco. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a fellowship in health research and policy at Stanford. Owens is a past-President of the Society for Medical Decision Making. He received the VA Undersecretary’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research, and the Eisenberg Award for Leadership in Medical Decision Making from the Society for Medical Decision Making. Owens also received a MERIT award from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse to study HIV, HCV, and the opioid epidemic. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP.)
Title: Academic Scientists in Court: Pros or Cons?
Steven Goodman, MD, MHS, PhD is Associate Dean of Clinical and Translational Research and Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, and Medicine. He is co-founder and co-director of the Meta-research innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), a group dedicated to examining and improving the reproducibility and efficiency of biomedical research.
Abstract: Most of what academics say are public. However, expert testimony they provide in court is often impossible to access. Thus, even though decisions they affect often have profound importance for public health or health policy, such experts are typically not accountable to the scientific community. This talk will review some high-profile examples, some from personal involvement, of court testimony from leading health scientists that embrace questionable scientific principles or causes contrary to their public positions or values. Solutions to this problem will be discussed.
Zoom Meeting
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