Ethics in research

Ethics in research and how it is translated into practice is fundamental to rule out any potential misconduct either with the scientific method or the way results are presented to the world, thus impacting patients outcomes. The last two years of the Covid-19 pandemic were prolific in exposing the scientific community and healthcare professionals to the many flaws regarding the different studies either with promising simple treatments or sophisticated medications. Supposedly high-profile papers with the antimalarial medication hydroxychloroquine either favoring its use or indicating the risk of death were retracted from very prestigious journals such as the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. Ethics in research became fundamental in reaction to abuses practiced against people as the Nazi studies on concentration camp prisoners or the syphilis study with American prisoners or the US governments radiation experiment. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s)

Social Connection in Older Age

While social isolation and loneliness affect individuals of all ages and backgrounds, older adults can be affected disproportionately, and are much more likely to suffer from health complications and related healthcare expenses. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and heightened the severity of social isolation and loneliness, especially for people aging at home, in long-term care facilities, and in nursing homes. This article explores meaningful interventions for older adults, including some that look outside the traditional healthcare sector and in the technology, housing, transportation, and nutrition fields.

Decision Criteria for Partial Nationalization of Pharmaceutical Supply Chain: A Scoping Review

(1) Background: Any disturbance in the pharmaceutical supply chain (PSC) can disrupt the supply of medicines and affect the efficiency of health systems. Due to shortages in the global pharma supply chain over the past few years and the complex nature of free trade and its limitations when confronted by a major global health and humanitarian crisis, many countries have taken steps to mitigate the risks of disruption, including, for example, recommending the adoption of a plus one diversification approach, increasing safety stock, and nationalizing the medical supply chains. (2) Objective: To scope findings in the academic literature related to decision criteria to guide national policy decisions for the "Partial Nationalization of Pharmaceutical Supply Chain” (PNPSC) from the viewpoints of the three main stakeholders: industry, payers (government and health insurance), and patients. (3) Methods: These consist of a scoping review of the peer-reviewed literature. (4) Results: A total of 115 studies were included. For local manufacturing decisions, five criteria and 15 sub-criteria were identified. Weighting, decision-making, risk assessment, and forecasting were the main data analysis tools applied;(5) Conclusions: The findings could serve as a baseline for constructing PNPSC frameworks after careful adaptation to the local context.

An Examination of Life Insurer Share Price Behavior Surrounding Covid-19 Death Announcements

As of May 2022, the Covid-19 pandemic records over 1 million deaths in the United States. Pertinent to the reported number of deaths, it is questioned whether life insurance firms gained or lost from those incidences. This paper pursues an event study that examines life insurer share price behaviors by the announcements reporting the cumulative death numbers when they reach a certain threshold. We find that life insurers' share prices drop with every announcement. Specifically, our analysis finds evidence for the support of the damage hypothesis based on two competing eses in the literature: damage and revenue hypothesis. Our post-analysis also finds that the pandemic penalized overvalued firms and discouraged dividend cash spending.

Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: Evidence from the 1918 Flu

We study the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on mortality and economic activity across U.S. cities during the 1918 Flu Pandemic. The combination of fast and stringent NPIs reduced peak mortality by 50 percent and cumulative excess mortality by 24 to 34 percent. However, while the pandemic itself was associated with short-run economic disruptions, we find that these disruptions were similar across cities with strict and lenient NPIs. NPIs also did not worsen medium-run economic outcomes. Our findings indicate that NPIs can reduce disease transmission without further depressing economic activity, a finding also reflected in discussions in contemporary newspapers.