Health

UHERO’s Carl Bonham speaking to the Hawaii State House Select Committee on COVID-19

Herd Immunity or Containment through Test and Trace?

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), a viral disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, has arrived and is spreading in Hawai’i.  In an attempt to “flatten the curve,” we have closed schools and many workplaces, while the entire state shelters at home. As a result, the economy is contracting fast.  While sufficiently flattening the curve is the […]

The Mortality Effects of Reduced Medicaid Coverage Among International Migrants in Hawaii: 2012–2018

We computed quarterly crude mortality rates for COFA migrants, Whites, and Japanese Americans from March 2012 to November 2018. We employed a difference-in-difference research design to estimate the impact of the Medicaid expiration on log mortality rates. We saw larger increases in COFA migrant mortality rates than White mortality rates after March 2015. By 2018, the increase […]

Carl Bonham appointed to Select House Committee on COVID-19

House Speaker Scott K. Saiki today announced the appointment of individuals to serve on the Select House Committee on COVID-19 Economic and Financial Preparedness adopted through House Resolution 54. UHERO Executive Director Carl Bonham along with a long list of other community, business, and legislative leaders have been named to the committee, which will be exploring how to […]

The intergenerational transmission of health in the United States: A latent variables analysis

Social scientists have long documented that many components of socioeconomic status such as income and education have strong ties across generations. However, health status, arguably a more critical component of welfare, has largely been ignored. We fill this void by providing the first estimates of the Intergenerational Health Association (IHA) that are explicitly based on a […]

The Impact of Medicaid on Health Care Utilization among Hawai‘i’s COFA Migrants

By Timothy Halliday and Randall Q Akee The Compacts of Free Association (COFA) are treaties between the United States (US) and three Micronesian nations: the Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Collectively, citizens of these nations are often referred to as “Micronesians.” COFA guarantees Micronesians free […]

The Impact of Public Health Insurance on Medical Utilization in a Vulnerable Population: Evidence from COFA Migrants

In March of 2015, the State of Hawaii stopped covering the vast majority of migrants from countries belonging to the Compact of Free Association (COFA) in the state Medicaid program. As a result COFA migrants were required to obtain private insurance in health insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act. Using statewide administrative hospital […]

Health Investment over the Life-Cycle

We quantify what drives the rise in medical expenditures over the life-cycle using a stochastic dynamic overlapping generations model of health investment. Three motives for health investment are considered. First, health delivers a flow of utility each period (the consumption motive). Second, better health enables people to allocate more time to productive or pleasurable activities (the investment […]

Impact of Financial Incentives on Health Outcomes and Costs of Care among Medicaid Beneficiaries with Diabetes in Hawai’i

The Hawai’i Patient Reward And Incentives to Support Empowerment (HI-PRAISE) project, part of the Medicaid Incentives for Prevention of Chronic Diseases program of the Affordable Care Act, examined the impact of financial incentives on Medicaid beneficiaries with diabetes. It included an observational pre-post study which was conducted at nine Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) between 2013 to […]