Publications by authors named "Jesse Malkin"
Background: As Saudi Arabia is expected to face population aging in the future, the burden of diseases arising from inadequate physical activity (PA) and excess sedentary behavior (SB) may subsequently increase without successful interventions. The present study critically reviews the global literature on the effectiveness of PA interventions targeting community-dwelling older adults to draw on lessons and applications for future interventions in Saudi Arabia.
Methods: This umbrella review of systematic reviews included interventions designed to increase PA and/or reduce SB in community-dwelling older adults.
Article Synopsis
- Physical inactivity is a major public health issue, prompting a review of effective physical activity (PA) policies.
- The review analyzed 12 studies from 2011 to 2022, identifying seven promising public policies, predominantly targeting youth in schools and one focused on walking groups in the community.
- Policymakers should prioritize school-based physical activity initiatives and community walking groups, but they need to conduct pilot studies to ensure these programs are effective and generalizable.
Background: The prevalence of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) has been increasing in Saudi Arabia.
Aims: Our objective was to estimate the effect of NCDs on direct medical costs and workforce productivity in Saudi Arabia.
Methods: To estimate direct medical costs, we estimated the unit cost of treating 10 NCDs, then multiplied the unit cost by disease prevalence and summed across diseases.
Context: The prevalence of overweight and obesity in Saudi Arabia has been rising. Although the health burden of excess weight is well established, little is known about the economic burden.
Aims: To assess the economic burden-both direct medical costs and the value of absenteeism and presenteeism-resulting from overweight and obesity in Saudi Arabia.
Article Synopsis
- The study estimates the economic impact of seven major noncommunicable diseases in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, quantifying direct medical costs, absenteeism, and presenteeism.
- The total direct medical costs amount to $16.7 billion, representing 0.6% of GDP, while additional costs from absenteeism and presenteeism contribute 0.5% and 2.2% of GDP, respectively.
- Limitations include not accounting for all noncommunicable diseases or indirect costs, highlighting the need for more research to understand this burden and improve health interventions.
Pharmaceutical companies and generic drug manufacturers have long been at odds over "data exclusivity" regulations. These rules require a waiting period of at least five years before generic drug companies can access valuable clinical trial data necessary to bring less expensive forms of innovative drugs to market. Pharmaceutical companies want the data exclusivity period lengthened to protect their investment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContext: Preventive care has been shown as a high-value health care service. Many employers now offer expanded coverage of preventive care to encourage utilization.
Objective: To determine whether expanding coverage is an effective means to encourage utilization.
Objective: To estimate patients' elasticity of demand, willingness to pay, and consumer surplus for five high-cost specialty medications treating metastatic disease or hematologic malignancies.
Data Source/study Setting: Claims data from 71 private health plans from 1997 to 2005.
Study Design: This is a revealed preference analysis of the demand for specialty drugs among cancer patients.
Employers, health plans, and pharmacy benefit managers-seeking to reduce rapid growth in pharmacy spending-have embraced multi-tier pharmacy benefit packages that use differential copayments to steer beneficiaries toward low-cost drugs. The consensus of fifteen pharmacy benefit design experts whom we interviewed is that such plans will become more prevalent and that the techniques these plans use to promote low-cost drugs will intensify. The effect on health outcomes depends on whether the high-cost drugs whose use is being discouraged have close, low-cost substitutes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Although most widely used risk adjustment systems use diagnosis data to classify patients, there is growing interest in risk adjustment based on computerized pharmacy data. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is an ideal environment in which to test the efficacy of a pharmacy-based approach.
Objective: To examine the ability of RxRisk-V to predict concurrent and prospective costs of care in VHA and compare the performance of RxRisk-V to a simple age/gender model, the original RxRisk, and two leading diagnosis-based risk adjustment approaches: Adjusted Clinical Groups and Diagnostic Cost Groups/Hierarchical Condition Categories.
Objective: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of increasing lengths of brief postpartum hospitalizations.
Methods: A cost-effectiveness model extrapolating from secondary data was used. Social costs in 2000 US dollars were estimated using several sources, including a randomized controlled trial, a retrospective study, and survey data.