A little history for the non-US readers: the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is an independent panel that reviews evidence and issues recommendations for preventive health care services. They are sponsored by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) but the panelists are physicians, nurses, and public health researchers employed by universities […]
Decision making and comparative effectivness research
I had planned to write a post pointing to the new background paper on comparative effectiveness research by the Society for Medical Decision Making, which I think does a very good job of explaining the purpose and practices of such research and debunking several myths. I had also planned to let people know about SMDM […]
Decision psychology and swine flu
Behavioral economist (and 2009 President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making) Dan Ariely appeared on NPR’s Marketplace to discuss reasons for the swine flu panic. Read or listen to the interview here. He focuses on the difference between the value of an identified life and a statistical life, as well as the impact […]
Symposia from SJDM/SMDM online
The 2008 annual meetings of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (SJDM) and the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) included a “symposium exchange”. A symposium by SJDM members was presented at SMDM 2008 (Pennsylvania, PA) and a symposium by SMDM members was presented at SJDM 2008 (Chicago, IL). At least one of the […]
Vaccines and evidence
Salon.com has recently reviewed a new book by pediatrician Dr. Paul Offit on the anti-MMR (and anti-thimerisol) vaccine movement. Back in February this year, a friend of mine wrote to me that she was “on the fence” about vaccinating her infant. As she put it, “Whom are we to believe?…I’d be interested in anything compelling […]
Comparative effectiveness and evidence-based medicine
A strange commentary in the Washington Times this week entitled “‘Evidence-based’ Rx miscues” makes claims about evidence-based medicine (EBM): both what the terms means and what it implies for health policy. The author suggests that EBM is equivalent to “one-size-fits-all” medicine that removes physician autonomy in pursuit of a “political imperative to cut costs – […]
Apples, Cheese, and Nudges
“Buy on apples, sell on cheese” is an old proverb among wine merchants. Taking a bite of an apple before tasting wine makes it easier to detect flaws in the wine, and the buyer who does so will not as easily make the mistake of paying more than the wine is worth. Cheese, on the […]
FLIP on pharmaceuticals
The November 2007 issue of Consumer Reports features an article entitled “Treatment traps to avoid.” The article focuses on unnecessary and overused health care treatments (in the United States). One major emphasis of the report is the emphasis on the approval of new drugs and the marketing process for drugs in the U.S. in general, […]
Ethics and Decision Science
Our book approaches medical decision making primarily from the standpoint of the community of clinicians, behavior scientists, and theorists who focus on the question of “how should decisions be made in order to provide the patient with the greatest health benefit?” Another group of thinkers, including clinicians, philosophers, lawyers, and patient advocates, have asked an […]
Review: Better: A surgeon’s notes on performance, by Atul Gawande
When I was taking my qualifying examinations for my Ph.D. in Psychology, one of my examiners asked me to address what he called the “moon question”: “If human beings are so dumb (according to decision psychology), how did we get to the moon?” The answer, of course, is that despite the predilection in cognitive psychology […]