{"id":657,"date":"2013-12-08T11:24:58","date_gmt":"2013-12-08T00:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=657"},"modified":"2013-12-08T11:54:09","modified_gmt":"2013-12-08T00:54:09","slug":"bmj-can-behavioural-economics-make-us-healthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=657","title":{"rendered":"BMJ: Can behavioural economics make us healthy"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>BE policies are by design less coercive and more effective than traditional approaches<\/li>\n<li>It is generally far more effective to punish than to reward<\/li>\n<li>Sticks masquerading as carrots &#8211; simultaneous, zero-sum incentives and penalties<\/li>\n<li>References to policies which have and have not worked &#8211; <strong>but why can&#8217;t policy be research?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.714285714;\">Conventional economics can therefore justify\u00a0regulatory interventions, such as targeted taxes and subsidies,\u00a0only in situations in which an individual\u2019s actions imposes costs\u00a0on others\u2014for example, second hand cigarette smoke. But the\u00a0potential reach of behavioural economics is much greater. By\u00a0recognising the prevalence of less than perfectly rational\u00a0behaviour, behavioural economics points to a large category of\u00a0situations in which policy intervention might be justified\u2014those\u00a0characterised by costs which people impose on themselves\u00a0(internalities), such as the long term health consequences of\u00a0smoking on smokers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>\u00a0Is it fair to say that in a universal health care system, any preventable ill health imposes costs on others, as it is the tax payer who picks up the cost of treatment?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>present bias:<\/strong>\u00a0the tendancy for\u00a0decision makers tend to put too much weight on\u00a0costs and benefits that are immediate and too little on those that\u00a0are delayed. Present bias can be used to positive effect by providing small, frequent (i.e. immediate) payments for beneficial behaviours e.g. smoking cessation, medication adherence, weight loss<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;peanuts effect&#8221; decision error<\/strong>: the\u00a0<span style=\"line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;\">tendency to pay too little attention to the small but cumulative\u00a0<\/span>consequences of repeated decisions, such as the effect on weightof repeated consumption of sugared beverages or the cumulative\u00a0health effect of smoking.<\/li>\n<li>competition and peer support are more powerful forms of behaviourally mediated interventions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Care of Nicholas Gruen.<\/p>\n<p>PDF:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/CanBehaviouralEconomicsMakeUsHealthier_BMJ.pdf\">CanBehaviouralEconomicsMakeUsHealthier_BMJ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Similarly in Health Affairs:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/content.healthaffairs.org\/content\/32\/4\/661.short\">http:\/\/content.healthaffairs.org\/content\/32\/4\/661.short<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BE policies are by design less coercive and more effective than traditional approaches It is generally far more effective to punish than to reward Sticks masquerading as carrots &#8211; simultaneous, zero-sum incentives and penalties References to policies which have and have not worked &#8211; but why can&#8217;t policy be research? Conventional economics can therefore justify\u00a0regulatory &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=657\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">BMJ: Can behavioural economics make us healthy<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,10,13,22,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-complex-adaptive-systems","category-healthcare","category-healthy-habits","category-nutrition","category-policy","category-politics","category-rapid-learning-health-systems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":665,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}