Browsing by Subject "Ebola"

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    Ebola-it came, killed, and crept away. What are the lessons learned?
    (2015-10-12) Einterz, Ellen
    This talk covers the disease in a non-technical way, a short history of Ebola, the various reasons why the epidemic got out of control, how it went away, and why the U.S. got involved, the setup of the U.S. Ebola Treatment Center in Liberia. Based on her personal experience, she also comments on the hidden cost of the epidemic, what we did right and what we got wrong, and how we might do better next time.
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    How elements of culture have contributed to the construction of health meanings in regards to the 2014 Ebola outbreak
    (2016-06) Balde, Abdourahmane; Goering, Elizabeth M.; Bute, Jennifer Jo; Parrish-Sprowl, John
    The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which elements of culture (values, beliefs, and behaviors) have contributed to the construction of health meaning in regards to 2014 Ebola outbreak in Guinea. I conducted 14 interviews with people who lived in Guinea during the 2014 Ebola outbreak about their own experiences of the crisis and how health related messages were received by the general population. All the participants in this study were between 25 and 56 with an average age of 41. All participants agreed that culture played a crucial role in how people perceived the disease. It has also impacted the way people responded the prevention plans. When the ones did not believe in the existence of the disease, others did believe but because of certain customs, they were unable to follow public health safety recommendation.
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    Three Essays in Health Economics: Policy and Natural Shocks in Healthcare Provision and Patient Outcomes
    (2022-11) Shone, Hailemichael Bekele; Gupta, Sumedha; Royalty, Anne Beeson; Simon, Kosali; Tennekoon, Vidhura; Boukai, Ben
    Policy and natural shocks are exogenous factors, which may disrupt patients’ ability to access recommended health care. My dissertation investigates the effect of recent natural and policy shocks in health care provision on different patient outcomes. The first chapter studies the effect of the 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa on maternal health care utilization and infant health in Sierra Leone. The Epidemic resulted in the diversion of the limited health care resource away from other services to care for Ebola patients. It also led to maternal stress from fear of infection and community breakdown. The results show the outbreak led to significant decline in maternal health care utilization and infant birth weight. The second chapter examines whether physician practices that are vertically integrated with hospitals provide healthcare at higher costs than non-integrated practices in a Medicare patient population. The degree of integration is exogenously assigned to a patient following a geographical move. The study finds that switching to integrated practice increases health care utilization and spending. Although integration may increase quality of care, the increase in spending suggests the need for a continuing attention to policies and incentives that are associated with integration. Finally, the third chapter documents the impact of the recent changes in state medical and recreational cannabis access laws in the United States on health care utilization. The liberalization of access to cannabis may enable patients to substitute cannabis for another prescription and non-prescription health care services. The results show a significant decline in the utilization of emergency and outpatient services among patients with chronic pain for the states that legalized cannabis. The effect is mainly due to medical cannabis laws, whereas the effect of recreational cannabis is ambiguous. The three chapters, taken together, show that exogenous shocks, such as natural shocks and government policy, affect health care utilization and the health of individuals. Health policies should, therefore, target developing a resilient health care system that withstands natural shocks and promote policies that provide better treatment alternatives.