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...

The fivefold increase in opioid deaths between 2000 and 2017 rivals even the COVID-19 pandemic as a health crisis for America. Why did it happen? Measures of demand for pain relief - physical pain and despair - are high but largely unchanging. The primary shift is in supply, primarily of new...

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...

Measuring the lifetime costs and benefits of medical technologies is essential in evaluating technological change and determining the productivity of medical care. Using data on Medicare beneficiaries with a heart attack in the late 1980s and 17 years of follow up data, I evaluate the long-term...