Testing the added value of self-reported health and well-being in understanding healthcare utilization and costs.

Purpose: We investigated the relationship between measures of self-reported health and well-being and concurrent and prospective healthcare utilization and costs to assess the added value of these self-reported measures in understanding utilization and cost.

Methods: Kaiser Permanente members (N = 6752) completed a 9-item survey measuring life evaluation, financial situation, social support, meaning and purpose, physical health, and mental health. Responses were linked to medical record information during the period 12 months before and after the survey.

From writing tasks to a public service announcement: Experimentally assessing savoring as a means of increasing help-seeking for depression.

Rationale: Prior studies that used positive emotion infusions (PEIs) to increase help-seeking for depression found initial support for the approach (Siegel & Thomson, 2016; Straszewski & Siegel, 2018, 2020). However, as people with depression experience negative biases that may be maximized when self-relevance is high (Clark et al., 1999), a potential way to maximize the effect of the PEI approach may be to reduce self-focus.

Using the County Health Rankings Framework to Create National Percentile Scores for Health Outcomes and Health Factors.

Introduction: As a means of conceptualizing population health, the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program developed a methodology to rank counties within each state on Health Outcomes and Health Factors. We built on this framework by introducing an additional application that utilized national percentile scores and population size weighting to compare counties on a national, rather than a state, level.

Methods: We created national percentile scores for 3078 US counties and used population size weighting in our calculations so that values for counties with larger populations would be weighted more heavily than values for counties with smaller populations.

Differential Effects of High- and Low-Arousal Positive Emotions on Help-Seeking for Depression.

Background: The current set of pre-registered studies tested the effect of savoring a high-arousal (exciting) or low-arousal (calm) positive experience on help-seeking intentions among people with heightened depressive symptomatology.

Methods: Across all three studies, participants with heightened depressive symptomatology who had not yet sought help were randomly assigned to complete a 6-minute writing task where they reflected on an exciting memory, a calm memory, or what they did today and yesterday.

Results: Savoring an exciting memory was associated with significantly greater arousal than savoring a calm memory and the control condition (Study 1; N = 218).

Positive Emotion Infusions: Can Savoring Increase Help-Seeking Intentions among People with Depression?

Background: The current research effort used two experimental studies to assess whether a savoring-based, positive emotion infusion (PEI) could increase help-seeking intentions among individuals with elevated depressive symptomatology and whether this relationship would be mediated by positive emotion, arousal, and perceptions of personal control.

Methods: In Study 1, participants with elevated depressive symptomatology, recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (N = 135), were randomly assigned to complete a 6-minute savoring or control writing task followed by a help-seeking intentions scale. Study 2 participants (N = 136) were randomly assigned to the same tasks, but a scale assessing positive emotion, arousal, and personal control was added.