costs

I must admit that I cringe slightly every time I try to think about healthcare from an economics perspective. To me, this comes a little close to putting a dollar value on human beings, which feels uncomfortably post-humanistic to me. Nonetheless, there is no ignoring the ways in which economic concerns factor into policy decisions that drive our human services, including health care.

There are also a number of pragmatic reasons for thinking about the costs associated with illnesses; talking in dollars and cents can make for a convincing argument when seeking funding to do research on a particular illness, for example. The ability to reduce healthcare costs is incredibly compelling in a time of fiscal restraint.

Crow (2014) published a short article about the economic costs of eating disorder treatment. In this article, he highlights some recent studies that have examined factors related to “the economics of … Continue reading →