Currently, there is insufficient evidence regarding which policies will improve nutrition, reduce BMI, the probability of obesity and the probability of overweight nationwide. This preliminary study investigates the impact of a nutrition-education policy relative to price policy as a means to...

We evaluate the impact of a health information intervention implemented through mobile phones, using a clustered randomized control trial augmented by qualitative interviews. The intervention aimed to improve sexual health knowledge and shift individuals towards safer sexual behavior by...

Individuals of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) ancestry in the US have been targeted by anti-immigrant and counterterrorism policies and have been the focus of vitriolic political rhetoric. Despite this, lack of data identifying MENA individuals has prevented systematic evaluation of the...

In this paper, we investigate the dynamics of informational regulatory approaches by analyzing the impact of smog alerts issued on consecutive days on discretionary outdoor activities in Southern California. Short-run adjustments to transitory risk entail costs that are likely to influence the...

During health crises, like COVID-19, individuals are inundated with messages promoting health-preserving behavior. Does additional light-touch messaging by a credible individual change behavior? Do the features of the message matter? To answer this, we conducted a large-scale messaging campaign...

Sedentary lifestyles, obesity, and obesity-related chronic diseases have become increasingly common among U.S. adults, posing a major health policy challenge. While individuals may be interested in exercising more to reduce these health risks, they often have difficultly forming long-term...

In the past few decades, some measures of population risk have improved, while others have deteriorated. Understanding the health of the population requires integrating these different trends. We compare the risk factor profile of the population in the early 1970s with that of the population in...

We study spillover effects of the largest ever increase in Medicaid primary care reimbursement rates on behavioral health and healthcare outcomes; mental illness, substance use disorders, and tobacco product use. Much of the variation in Medicaid reimbursement rates we leverage is attributable...

The purposes of this paper are to measure self-regulation, to investigate whether self-regulation differs across different health related choices, to estimate its effect on health choices and to estimate the effect of self-regulation on health-demographic gradients. The theory and empirical...

We study whether prompts to form and recall a plan can increase individuals' responsiveness to reminders to make and attend beneficial appointments. At four companies, all employees due for a colonoscopy were randomly assigned to receive either a control mailing or a treatment mailing. The...