Health Data Projects

Water fluoridation is a safe, cheap, and effective means of primary prevention against dental caries in children and in adults. It is accessible to all people regardless of income, race, or geography, and does not rely on behavior change. Evidence … Read More

Disparities along lines of socioeconomic disadvantage are observed across the life course. One critical driver of disparities in late-life morbidity and mortality is senescence of the immune system, or immunosenescence, which is known to be associated with chronic inflammation. However, … Read More

A more comprehensive understanding of the linkage between cigarette smoking and cause-specific adult mortality in the contemporary United States than exists to date. The researchers will use data from the National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality Files (NHIS-LMF). This project … Read More

Many nursing homes suffer from high rates of turnover, especially among staff providing direct care to residents. High levels of staff turnover can have deleterious effects on resident outcomes, ranging from mental status to clinical measures such as rates of … Read More

This project uses a restricted version of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) from the National Center for Health Statistics. Over the past several decades, women have been steadily increasing their labor supply. The economic impact of this trend cannot … Read More

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurobehavioral disorder of childhood that is difficult to diagnose and has no known cause. There is some concern that diagnoses for ADHD are not for underlying behavioral problems but rather represent age-appropriate differences in behavior. … Read More

Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs) are small, typically physician-owned healthcare facilities that specialize in performing outpatient surgeries and therefore compete against hospitals for patients. Physicians who own ASCs could potentially treat their most profitable patients at their ASCs and less profitable … Read More

Since their creation as part of the War on Poverty in the 1960s, Community Health Centers (CHCs) have filled an important role in providing health care to underserved populations. Recent infusions of federal support have expanded this role. Non-physician clinicians … Read More

The empirical evidence currently available regarding which obesity-related policy interventions are most effective, and which behavioral contexts to target, is generally not causally interpretable. A proposed new method is designed to account for potential endogeneity and, therefore, will produce results … Read More

This study evaluates the associations between cause-specific mortality for a wide spectrum of diseases (which includes both diseases that are ICD-coded as heat/cold-related and diseases that are not coded as heat/cold related) and weather characteristics such as temperature, humidity, wind, … Read More