Healthcare Decision-Making and Outcomes for People Living with Alzheimer's Disease
The aging of the US population is associated with rising prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). This represents a profound and emergent challenge for both health and long-term care systems. Healthcare for those with ADRD has received less attention from economists than healthcare for a number of other diseases, and there are crucial gaps in the understanding of healthcare decision-making and treatment outcomes for this group. There are unique aspects and potential barriers to providing healthcare to people with ADRD, since they may be less capable than others of communicating their symptoms and health histories or following through independently on prescribed treatments. Individuals diagnosed with ADRD often rely on family members and other caregivers for support.
The collection of research initiatives that together comprise this project draw on clinical and economic expertise along with novel data sets and analytical tools to analyze the decision-making challenges faced by patients, as well as by providers and care-givers who are responding to the complex needs of individuals living with ADRD. These initiatives also examine the role that these challenges play in contributing to disparities in access to treatment, as well as outcomes, across sub-groups in the US population.
This project is the latest phase of a Program Project on health and well-being at older ages that the NBER has hosted for several decades. Information on some of the sub-projects that were supported by earlier Program Projects may be found on the Projects page. In addition to its five distinct research initiatives, this Project includes an administrative core, a data core, and a measurement core that seeks to improve how we identify individuals with ADRD, and how we track the progression of ADRD from early symptoms of mild dementia, through the stages of preclinical and clinical cognitive decline in existing and new databases.
Investigators
Katherine Baicker is Dean and Emmett Dedmon Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on the effects of public and private health insurance coverage on the distribution and quality of health care services.
Malaz Boustani is the Richard M. Fairbanks Professor of Aging Research, and a Professor of Medicine, at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He is also the founding director of the Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science and director of senior care innovation at Eskenazi Health.
Joseph J. Doyle is the Erwin H. Schell Professor of Management and Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research ranges widely in the field of health economics, addressing both the delivery of health care services and the operation of health insurance markets.
Josh Gottlieb is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. His research spans health economics, public finance, and labor economics, with particular emphasis on the factors that affect the behavior of health care suppliers.
Ben Handel is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California – Berkeley. His research focuses on consumer choice and market structure regarding health insurance markets, and on regulation of insurance markets.
Jonathan T. Kolstad is an associate professor of economic analysis and policy at the University of California, Berkeley Hass School of Business. His research interests lie at the intersection of health economics, industrial organization, and public economics.
Tim Layton is an associate professor of public policy and economics at the Frank Batten Schoolof Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on the economics of health insurance markets, with particular attention to insurance coverage of low-income households.
Adam Sacarny is an assistant professor of health policy and management at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. His research explores the relationship between health care payment policy, provider and patient decision-making, and clinical quality.
Kosali Simon holds the Herman B. Wells Endowed Professorship at Indiana University's O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Her research focuses on the determinants of health outcomes, in particular the role of public and private health insurance.
Bill J. Wright is a research scientist at the Providence Health System Center for Outcomes Research and Education, where he carries out research and program evaluation on health care access, quality, and safety. His primary emphasis is on survey design and research methodology.
Supported by the National Institute on Aging grants #P01AG005842 and #3P01AG005842-32S1
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CITATION: Annals of Internal Medicine 171, September 2019, pp. 464-473
CITATION: Molecular Psychiatry May 2020
CITATION: International Journal of Health Economics and Management 20(3), September 2020, pp. 299–317
CITATION: JAMA 324(10), September 2020, pp. 1000–1003
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