Human capital, health and longevity: explaining the health gradient

人力资本、健康与长寿：解释健康梯度

• 批准号: 8352195
• 负责人: Titus Johannes Galama
• 金额: $ 9.48万
• 依托单位: RAND CORPORATION
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-30 至 2013-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8352195
• 关键词: Address; Adopted; Aging; Attention; Award; Behavior; Behavioral Model; Behavioral Research; Behavioral Sciences; Buffaloes; Businesses; California; Capital; Chicago; Collaborations; Data Analyses; Doctor of Philosophy; Drug Formulations; Economics; Education; Educational Background; Effectiveness; Empirical Research; Employee Strikes; Ensure; Epidemiology; Equation; Foundations; Funding; Genetic; Growth; Health; Health education; Human; Independent Scientist Award; Individual; Inservice Training; Institution; Investments; Joints; Knowledge; Life Cycle Stages; Light; Literature; London; Longevity; Los Angeles; Medical Sociology; Methods; Neurobiology; Outcome; Pharmacology; Physics; Plant Roots; Policies; Policy Maker; Population; Psychology; Public Policy; Relative (related person); Research; Research Personnel; Research Project Grants; Resources; Role; Schools; Social Sciences; Societies; Socioeconomic Status; Techniques; Testing; Theoretical model; Time; Training; Universities; Work; career; career development; health disparity; human capital; model development; programs; skills; success; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): One of the most striking and well-established findings in the social sciences is the very strong association between education and health. The substantial disparities in health between educational groups have attracted the attention of policymakers and reducing them is a key policy objective. Yet, surprisingly, very little is understood about this strong association, and despite previous policy efforts health disparities are increasing. In part, progress in understanding and reducing disparities has been hampered by the absence of a theoretical framework, that combines both human capital (e.g., education, [on-the-job] training) and health capital (health and longevity), to guide analyses, interpret results and derive new predictions. I have recently laid the foundation for such a theory by addressing a number of serious limitations that have long been identified with the health capital literature. I am an (award-winning, highly-cited) astrophysicist who has recently made a significant career change to the behavioral sciences. I recently completed a second PhD, this time in economics (June 2011) in which I developed a theory of disparities in health and longevity between socioeconomic status groups. As a fairly new entrant into economics, I have two immediate career objectives. First, I want to establish credibility as an economist by using the window of opportunity provided by the recent advances I made to develop a number of important life cycle theories (also Aim 1). Second, I want to strengthen the career transition to behavioral research, by further honing my skills in data analysis and econometric techniques by empirically testing my theories in collaboration with distinguished experts in relevant fields and methods (also Aim 2). My long-term career objectives are to build a research group and to establish a RAND center in human capital, health and aging (also Aim 3). The K02 mechanism would provide protected time for the proposed research agenda to achieve these immediate- and long-term career objectives. The proposed research can substantially enrich our understanding of the strong relationship between education and health, the role of institutions in encouraging investments in human capital and health, and open new avenues to addressing the observed significant disparities in health between educational groups. To ensure the success of the proposed work, I will be supported by a diverse group of renowned scholars. While their work is rooted in economics and epidemiology it draws on a variety of fields, including neurobiology, genetics, pharmacology, medicine, sociology and psychology. Further, I have the support of RAND's Labor and Population unit and access not only to the wide array of RAND's resources but also to those of my collaborators at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Chicago, the London School of Economics, Erasmus University and SUNY at Buffalo (UB). My business and management skills, in combination with my ability to conduct high level research, ideally suit me to building a research group and setting up and directing a RAND center with a focus on human capital, health and aging research. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: One of the most striking and well-established findings in the social sciences is the very strong association between education and health, yet, very little is understood about the mechanisms underlying such health disparities. This project sheds light on this relation by further developing an economic theory of education and health, testing its predictions using structural- and reduced-form econometric techniques and employing the behavioral model to assess the relative effectiveness of alternative institutions / policies in creating healthy, wealthy and skilled societies.

描述（由申请人提供）：社会科学中最引人注目和最成熟的发现之一是教育和健康之间的密切联系。受教育群体之间在健康方面的巨大差距引起了决策者的注意，缩小这种差距是一项关键的政策目标。然而，令人惊讶的是，很少有人了解这种强烈的联系，尽管以前的政策努力，健康差距正在增加。在某种程度上，理解和减少差距的进展受到缺乏理论框架的阻碍，该框架将人力资本（例如，教育、[在职]培训）和健康资本（健康和长寿），以指导分析，解释结果并得出新的预测。 我最近通过解决长期以来与健康资本文献一起确定的一些严重局限性，为这样一个理论奠定了基础。我是一名（屡获殊荣，被高度引用的）天体物理学家，最近在行为科学方面做出了重大的职业转变。我最近完成了第二个博士学位，这次是经济学（2011年6月），我开发了一个社会经济地位群体之间健康和寿命差异的理论。作为一个经济学的新手，我有两个直接的职业目标。首先，我想通过利用我最近取得的进展来发展一些重要的生命周期理论（也是目标1）所提供的机会来建立作为经济学家的可信度。第二，我想加强职业生涯过渡到行为研究，通过与相关领域和方法的杰出专家合作，通过实证检验我的理论，进一步磨练我在数据分析和计量经济学技术方面的技能（也是目标2）。我的长期职业目标是建立一个研究小组，并建立一个兰德人力资本，健康和老龄化中心（也是目标3）。K 02机制将为拟议的研究议程提供受保护的时间，以实现这些近期和长期的职业目标。 拟议的研究可以大大丰富我们对教育与健康之间的密切关系、机构在鼓励人力资本和健康投资方面的作用的理解，并为解决教育群体之间观察到的健康方面的重大差距开辟新的途径。 为了确保拟议的工作取得成功，我将得到一批不同的知名学者的支持。虽然他们的工作植根于经济学和流行病学，但它借鉴了各种领域，包括神经生物学，遗传学，药理学，医学，社会学和心理学。此外，我还得到了兰德公司劳动和人口部门的支持，不仅可以使用兰德公司的各种资源，还可以使用我在加州大学、洛杉矶大学（UCLA）、芝加哥大学、伦敦经济学院、伊拉斯谟大学和纽约州立大学布法罗分校（UB）的合作者的资源。我的商业和管理技能，结合我进行高层次研究的能力，理想地适合我建立一个研究小组，建立和指导一个兰德中心，重点是人力资本，健康和老龄化研究。 公共卫生相关性：社会科学中最引人注目和公认的发现之一是教育与健康之间的密切联系，但人们对这种健康差异的机制知之甚少。该项目通过进一步发展教育和健康的经济理论，使用结构和简化形式的计量经济学技术测试其预测，并采用行为模型来评估替代机构/政策在创造健康，富裕和熟练的社会方面的相对有效性，从而揭示了这种关系。