STORRE Community: This community contains the ePrints and eTheses produced by Economics staff and students.
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/89
This community contains the ePrints and eTheses produced by Economics staff and students.2024-03-29T14:37:01ZDispositional and situational attributions for why the rich live longer than the poor
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/35875
Title: Dispositional and situational attributions for why the rich live longer than the poor
Author(s): Bridger, Emma K.; Tufte‐Hewett, Angela; Comerford, David A.
Abstract: Despite considerable focus on predictors of attitudes towards economic inequality, there is less psychological research into attitudes towards other unequal outcomes between the rich and poor, including differences in health and life expectancy. Two studies examine whether causal attributions for these socioeconomic health inequalities predict attitudes towards them. A cross-sectional study of 332 UK and US respondents showed that most respondents indicate a preference for some degree of income inequality but no life expectancy inequality between the richest and poorest in society. These preferences for equal life expectancy for the rich and poor were significantly less likely for respondents who viewed health inequalities to be caused by dispositional factors (e.g., self-control, ability or effort). In a second pre-registered cross-sectional study (n = 602), dispositional attributions negatively predicted self-reported concern about health inequality, whilst endorsing situational attributions (e.g., discrimination and prejudice, wages) was positively associated with concerns on this issue. Moreover, situational attributions positively predicted support for six policy proposals for reducing health inequality, while dispositional attributions were associated with increased support for some of these interventions and decreased support for others. Despite very distinct distribution preferences for income and life expectancy outcomes, causal attributions continue to predict attitudes towards health inequality and associated policy interventions.2023-06-01T00:00:00ZPerceived health inequalities: are the UK and US public aware of occupation-related health inequality, and do they wish to see it reduced?
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/35872
Title: Perceived health inequalities: are the UK and US public aware of occupation-related health inequality, and do they wish to see it reduced?
Author(s): Bridger, Emma K.; Tufte-Hewett, Angela; Comerford, David A.
Abstract: Background One underexamined factor in the study of lay views of socioeconomic health inequalities is occupation-related health. Examining health by occupational social class has a long history in the UK but has been comparatively overlooked in US public health literatures, where the relationship between health and work has attended more to hazard exposure. Methods Representative samples of the UK and US indicated the perceived and ideal lifespan of people working in “higher managerial/professional” and “routine” occupations. We examine perceptions of inequality and desires for equality across occupation groups as a function of country and key socio-demographic variables. Results 67.8% of UK and 53.7% of US participants identified that professionals live longer than routine workers. Multivariate models indicated that US participants were markedly less likely to be aware of occupation-related inequalities after controlling for age, gender, and education. Awareness was negatively related to age (in the US) and recent voting behaviours (both samples). Desiring equal life expectancy was less likely in the US sample, and less likely across both samples among older participants and those with lower levels of education. Conclusion Employing a novel approach to measuring perceived and ideal life expectancy inequality, this is the first study to examine perceptions of lifespan inequality by occupational groups. It reports widespread understanding of the occupation-related gradient in lifespan and a desire that these inequalities be eliminated in the UK, but considerably less awareness and desire for equality in the US. Greater tolerance for social status inequalities in the US than other similar countries appear to also extend to differences in life expectancy.2023-11-24T00:00:00ZResponse Bias in Survey Measures of Expectations: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Expectations’ Inflation Module
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/35868
Title: Response Bias in Survey Measures of Expectations: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Expectations’ Inflation Module
Author(s): Comerford, David A
Abstract: The Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE) infers respondents’ inflation expectations from density forecasts. Using numeracy data and tests for coherence among 117,000 respondents to the SCE, I find that density forecasts suffer non-negligible reporting bias and selective nonresponse. A simple verbal question collected by the SCE suffers neither of these deficiencies and so has better properties to deliver an accurate snapshot of the population's inflation expectations than the headline measures of inflation expectations published by the SCE. I demonstrate how the verbal measure can be harnessed to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in density forecasts.2023-01-19T00:00:00ZApplications of behavioural economics to health: three studies in health decision making and behaviour
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/35863
Title: Applications of behavioural economics to health: three studies in health decision making and behaviour
Author(s): Murphy, Robert P
Abstract: To maximise the health of society within a limited budget, decision makers in public health systems need to decide which health treatments to fund and how best to support engagement by patients with treatments. Current practice is heavily influenced by rational choice theory. In this thesis we apply an alternative behavioural economics perspective to inform decisions on which treatments to fund and how to support engagement with services.
Decisions on which treatments to fund are often informed by the expected gains in patients’ quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). QALYs are derived from objective mortality data weighted by appraisals made by members of the general population of the likely impact on well-being associated with health states (the Q in QALYs). Concerns have been raised about the way in which the quality component of QALYs is calculated, leading to calls for ways to obtain experience informed general population appraisals.
In Chapter 2 we test the effect on general population preferences (N = 155) of being informed of patients’ mean ratings of their health state and whether the direction of an effect depends on people’s prior beliefs of patients’ mean rating of the health states. We find that when the mean ratings given by patients are higher (lower) than expected, participants in the intervention group provide significantly higher (lower) valuations than participants in the control group. In Chapter 3 we examine whether people (N = 1259) selectively underestimate the well-being consequences of moderate anxiety / depression as compared to other dimensions of health, and we test if being informed of actual changes in well-being associated with health states changes appraisals of their relative undesirability. We find that people provided with information on the consequences of health states for life satisfaction or for day affect report a higher preference for avoiding living with moderate anxiety / depression. Both Chapters show that informing people of these summary measures before they appraise health states is a feasible way to obtain experience informed preferences and that experience informed preferences differ to those obtained using the current method.
Non-attendance for hospital appointments is a problem. One way to increase attendance is to improve the accuracy of waiting lists by writing to patients to check if a procedure is still required. However, the did not return (DNR) rate to such letters is substantial. In Chapter 4 we test (N = 2855) whether the DNR rate is reduced by introducing nudges to validation letters. We find that the redesigned validation letter reduced DNRs, by 4.73 percentage points or 19.73%.
Taken together these studies show the importance of applying a behavioural economics perspective to inform decisions on how to maximise the health of society.2023-06-27T00:00:00Z