Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published i... more Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the intereste...
In the context of the evolving National Strategy on Falls and Fractures, the current economic cos... more In the context of the evolving National Strategy on Falls and Fractures, the current economic cost and projected costs going forward are of vital importance, and lay the foundation for future evaluation of the Strategy. This report aims to estimate the economic burden of falls and fractures in Ireland, and to project these costs over the next 20 years, in the absence of a National Strategy. Unless we know these baseline costs, it will be impossible to evaluate the reduction in costs that may arise from the implementation of a National Strategy. The estimates provided by this report are therefore invaluable.
Objective:To elucidate the patient9s journey with sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM) in the ... more Objective:To elucidate the patient9s journey with sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM) in the 3-year period before diagnosis. Background:sIBM is a rare form of progressive inflammatory myositis observed in older patients. Initial diagnoses may often be wrong due to low disease awareness and lack of standard diagnostic algorithm. Methods:A retrospective cohort study using MarketScan claims database included patients aged ≥50 years (at index) with ≥1 inpatient/emergency room (ER) or ≥2 outpatient diagnoses of sIBM (ICD-9-CM 359.71) on different dates ≥7 days apart during the identification period (01/04/2011-31/03/2014). All patients were required to have at least 3 years continuous enrollment for medical and pharmacy benefits before index date, defined as the first diagnosis date in the identification period. Exclusion criteria included a diagnosis of congenital hereditary muscular dystrophy or hereditary progressive muscular dystrophy any time during the study period (01/04/2008-...
This report aims to estimate the economic burden of falls and fractures in Ireland, and to projec... more This report aims to estimate the economic burden of falls and fractures in Ireland, and to project these costs over the next 20 years, in the absence of a National Strategy.
Life satisfaction has received an increasing amount of attention in the economics literature. How... more Life satisfaction has received an increasing amount of attention in the economics literature. However, very little work has focused on children and how weight affects their life satisfaction. Recent work has suggested that in adults the Body Mass Index (BMI) of one’s peers has an important effect on one’s life satisfaction. This study will examine how important a child’s BMI and their BMI relative to their peers is for their life satisfaction using data on 1,025 children in Ireland from the Health Behaviour in Schoolaged Children Survey. This study of weight-related inequalities in child life satisfaction is particularly important as obesity among Irish children is growing at a very fast rate. The physical health consequences of child obesity are widely known though they may not become apparent for many years, whereas the consequences for mental health and wellbeing may be immediate. This study finds that an increase in relative BMI is associated with a decrease in life satisfaction...
Research has shown that employment status, such as being unemployed or retired, can be related to... more Research has shown that employment status, such as being unemployed or retired, can be related to well-being. In addition, the direction and size of these relationships can be influenced by the employment status of one's peer group. For example, it has been shown that the well-being of the unemployed tends to be higher for those living in high-unemployment areas compared to the unemployed living in low-unemployment areas. In this paper, we explore whether such employment peer effects impact upon the well-being of older workers. This is an important issue in the context of promoting longer working lives. If the well-being of older people in employment is lowered by low employment levels in their peer group, then sustaining high employment among older workers will be more difficult. We use data from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) which is a nationally representative sample of people aged fifty and over and living in Ireland, collected between 2009 and 2011. Employm...
Smoking, low physical activity and frequent alcohol consumption may have substantial health risks... more Smoking, low physical activity and frequent alcohol consumption may have substantial health risks in terms of disease, quality of life and mortality. Understanding inequality in relation to these behaviours among older people is important in the context of a rapidly ageing population. In this study, we examine income-related inequality in relation to these three key health behaviours using data on older adults from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. We employ concentration indices and decompose them to determine the factors which contribute most to inequality. We then examine whether differences exist between the two regions. We find that smoking and low physical activity are more concentrated among those with lower incomes in both regions. In relation to physical activity, the magnitude of the inequality is higher for Northern Ireland. Frequent alcohol consumption is more concentrated among those with higher incomes in both regions. Self-assessed health and age tend...
Journal of managed care & specialty pharmacy, 2016
Heart failure (HF) is a debilitating disease associated with high mortality and frequent hospital... more Heart failure (HF) is a debilitating disease associated with high mortality and frequent hospitalizations. American College of Cardiology Foundation and American Heart Association (ACCF/AHA) guidelines recommend the following drug classes for HF treatment: angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI), angiotensin receptor II blocker (ARB) for patients intolerant to ACEI, beta blocker (BB), and aldosterone antagonist (AA). To examine, in a real-word setting, the treatment initiation pattern among newly diagnosed HF patients in the United States, subsequent treatment modifications, hospitalizations and the impact of hospitalizations on therapy changes, and treatment adherence and persistence. Using medical and pharmacy claims data from the Truven Health MarketScan database, this retrospective cohort study included adult patients with ≥ 2 medical claims corresponding to an HF diagnosis (ICD-9-CM codes 428.x, 402.11, 402.91, 404.01, 404.11, 404.91, 404.03, 404.13, and 404.93) between ...
This paper uses a burden of illness methodology to achieve a better understanding of the cost of ... more This paper uses a burden of illness methodology to achieve a better understanding of the cost of falls and fractures within Ireland. The base number of older people falling annually in Ireland is 130,000. About 80% of these are non-injurious with the remainder following a healthcare trajectory that may involve hospital care, GP visits, outpatient visits, informal care, long-stay care and sometimes death. Unit costs are applied to the different levels of care and aggregated to generate the overall cost of illness of falls and fractures in the country. The estimated baseline cost of falls and fractures is Euro 404 million. The largest components of this cost are: mortality, lost quality of life, long-stay care costs and hospital inpatient costs. The findings are relevant in the context of the development of a National Strategy for the prevention of falls and fractures in Ireland. Investment in such a Strategy will likely yield significant benefits.
Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published i... more Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the intereste...
In the context of the evolving National Strategy on Falls and Fractures, the current economic cos... more In the context of the evolving National Strategy on Falls and Fractures, the current economic cost and projected costs going forward are of vital importance, and lay the foundation for future evaluation of the Strategy. This report aims to estimate the economic burden of falls and fractures in Ireland, and to project these costs over the next 20 years, in the absence of a National Strategy. Unless we know these baseline costs, it will be impossible to evaluate the reduction in costs that may arise from the implementation of a National Strategy. The estimates provided by this report are therefore invaluable.
Objective:To elucidate the patient9s journey with sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM) in the ... more Objective:To elucidate the patient9s journey with sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM) in the 3-year period before diagnosis. Background:sIBM is a rare form of progressive inflammatory myositis observed in older patients. Initial diagnoses may often be wrong due to low disease awareness and lack of standard diagnostic algorithm. Methods:A retrospective cohort study using MarketScan claims database included patients aged ≥50 years (at index) with ≥1 inpatient/emergency room (ER) or ≥2 outpatient diagnoses of sIBM (ICD-9-CM 359.71) on different dates ≥7 days apart during the identification period (01/04/2011-31/03/2014). All patients were required to have at least 3 years continuous enrollment for medical and pharmacy benefits before index date, defined as the first diagnosis date in the identification period. Exclusion criteria included a diagnosis of congenital hereditary muscular dystrophy or hereditary progressive muscular dystrophy any time during the study period (01/04/2008-...
This report aims to estimate the economic burden of falls and fractures in Ireland, and to projec... more This report aims to estimate the economic burden of falls and fractures in Ireland, and to project these costs over the next 20 years, in the absence of a National Strategy.
Life satisfaction has received an increasing amount of attention in the economics literature. How... more Life satisfaction has received an increasing amount of attention in the economics literature. However, very little work has focused on children and how weight affects their life satisfaction. Recent work has suggested that in adults the Body Mass Index (BMI) of one’s peers has an important effect on one’s life satisfaction. This study will examine how important a child’s BMI and their BMI relative to their peers is for their life satisfaction using data on 1,025 children in Ireland from the Health Behaviour in Schoolaged Children Survey. This study of weight-related inequalities in child life satisfaction is particularly important as obesity among Irish children is growing at a very fast rate. The physical health consequences of child obesity are widely known though they may not become apparent for many years, whereas the consequences for mental health and wellbeing may be immediate. This study finds that an increase in relative BMI is associated with a decrease in life satisfaction...
Research has shown that employment status, such as being unemployed or retired, can be related to... more Research has shown that employment status, such as being unemployed or retired, can be related to well-being. In addition, the direction and size of these relationships can be influenced by the employment status of one's peer group. For example, it has been shown that the well-being of the unemployed tends to be higher for those living in high-unemployment areas compared to the unemployed living in low-unemployment areas. In this paper, we explore whether such employment peer effects impact upon the well-being of older workers. This is an important issue in the context of promoting longer working lives. If the well-being of older people in employment is lowered by low employment levels in their peer group, then sustaining high employment among older workers will be more difficult. We use data from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) which is a nationally representative sample of people aged fifty and over and living in Ireland, collected between 2009 and 2011. Employm...
Smoking, low physical activity and frequent alcohol consumption may have substantial health risks... more Smoking, low physical activity and frequent alcohol consumption may have substantial health risks in terms of disease, quality of life and mortality. Understanding inequality in relation to these behaviours among older people is important in the context of a rapidly ageing population. In this study, we examine income-related inequality in relation to these three key health behaviours using data on older adults from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. We employ concentration indices and decompose them to determine the factors which contribute most to inequality. We then examine whether differences exist between the two regions. We find that smoking and low physical activity are more concentrated among those with lower incomes in both regions. In relation to physical activity, the magnitude of the inequality is higher for Northern Ireland. Frequent alcohol consumption is more concentrated among those with higher incomes in both regions. Self-assessed health and age tend...
Journal of managed care & specialty pharmacy, 2016
Heart failure (HF) is a debilitating disease associated with high mortality and frequent hospital... more Heart failure (HF) is a debilitating disease associated with high mortality and frequent hospitalizations. American College of Cardiology Foundation and American Heart Association (ACCF/AHA) guidelines recommend the following drug classes for HF treatment: angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI), angiotensin receptor II blocker (ARB) for patients intolerant to ACEI, beta blocker (BB), and aldosterone antagonist (AA). To examine, in a real-word setting, the treatment initiation pattern among newly diagnosed HF patients in the United States, subsequent treatment modifications, hospitalizations and the impact of hospitalizations on therapy changes, and treatment adherence and persistence. Using medical and pharmacy claims data from the Truven Health MarketScan database, this retrospective cohort study included adult patients with ≥ 2 medical claims corresponding to an HF diagnosis (ICD-9-CM codes 428.x, 402.11, 402.91, 404.01, 404.11, 404.91, 404.03, 404.13, and 404.93) between ...
This paper uses a burden of illness methodology to achieve a better understanding of the cost of ... more This paper uses a burden of illness methodology to achieve a better understanding of the cost of falls and fractures within Ireland. The base number of older people falling annually in Ireland is 130,000. About 80% of these are non-injurious with the remainder following a healthcare trajectory that may involve hospital care, GP visits, outpatient visits, informal care, long-stay care and sometimes death. Unit costs are applied to the different levels of care and aggregated to generate the overall cost of illness of falls and fractures in the country. The estimated baseline cost of falls and fractures is Euro 404 million. The largest components of this cost are: mortality, lost quality of life, long-stay care costs and hospital inpatient costs. The findings are relevant in the context of the development of a National Strategy for the prevention of falls and fractures in Ireland. Investment in such a Strategy will likely yield significant benefits.
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Papers by Eibhlin Hudson