Pharmaceutical companies pay more than $2 billion to physicians every year. Most of these payments are for food and beverage, speaking, honoraria, consulting, and travel and lodging, which are termed “general payments.” These payments have come under increased scrutiny as critics of pharmaceutical promotion argue that they influence prescribing in...
Social factors are a major contributor to deaths in the US. The literature suggests that socioeconomic status and other social and environmental factors influence an individual’s mortality. These factors encompass six domains that comprise factors such as poverty, unemployment, poor access to healthy food, limited access to health care, limited...
The application of formal multilayer networks (MLNs)—networks which contain multiple types of relationships, data types, or other additional features of complexity and connectivity—has recently become popular in many fields. Areas of study ranging from social science to biology have utilized MLNs to explore, describe, and analyze interconnected complex systems. MLNs...
This dissertation studies topics in health care operations management related to value-based care, where {\em value} can be thought of as the ratio of quality to cost. The objective in value-based care is to increase, or maximize, value by reducing costs and improving quality health outcomes. In Chapter 1 we...
Reducing the high incidence of metabolic syndrome especially among older people living in low income communities is a goal of the health system. Residents of the Austin community of Chicago suffer from a heavy burden of health issues related to metabolic syndrome leading to disproportionally higher morbidity and mortality rates...