Author: David Madden

From Brendan Kennelly at NUIG

The Obesity Problem:

Insights and analysis from economics, medicine and public health

The Health Economics and Policy Analysis research group at NUI Galway is delighted to announce that it will host a one day conference on obesity on January 17, 2014. Obesity is a complex, interdisciplinary problem that involves genetics, physiology, the environment, psychology, and economics. Economic factors have played a significant role in the development of the obesity crisis and economics offers many insights into various solutions to ameliorate the crisis and to prevent more people from becoming obese. The conference will be of interest to researchers, clinicians and policymakers working in this area.

The keynote speaker at the conference will be Professor John Cawley from Cornell University. Professor Cawley is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading economists on this issue and we are delighted that he has agreed to attend our event. Professor Cawley’s research has covered three major issues: the economic causes of obesity; the economic consequences of obesity; and the economic analysis of interventions to reduce obesity. Professor Cawley will give an overview of his research in this area and will also participate in a roundtable discussion that will focus on policy options to reduce obesity.

The other speakers and the topics they will address will include the following:

· An overview of the extent of the obesity problem in Ireland (Professor Tim O’Brien, NUI Galway)

· Cost-effectiveness of bariatric surgery (Dr. Francis Finucane, University Hospital Galway)

· Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood obesity in Ireland (Brendan Walsh, NUI Galway)

· Exploring individual preferences for obesity treatment and willingness to pay for treatments (Michelle Queally, NUI Galway)

· Economic cost of obesity in Ireland (Dr. Anne Dee, Mid-West HSE)

· The distributional effects of a ‘fat tax’ in Ireland (Professor David Madden, University College Dublin)

Format of the conference:

9.00: Welcome

9.15 – 9.45: Overview of the obesity problem in Ireland (Tim O’Brien)

9.45 – 10.45: Economic Analysis of Obesity (John Cawley)

11.15 – 12.45: Series of presentations on ongoing work on obesity in Ireland (Michelle Queally; Brendan Walsh; Francis Finucane; John Cullinan)

2.00 – 2.20: Economic cost of obesity in Ireland (Anne Dee)

2.20 – 2.50: Distributional effects of a fat tax in Ireland (David Madden)

3.00 – 4.00: Roundtable discussion on interventions to reduce obesity

The conference will be held in the Aula Maxima at NUI Galway. For more details please contact Brendan Kennelly at brendan.kennelly@nuigalway.ie or 091 493094

Registration is free but is required for catering and logistical purposes. To register, please go to http://www.conference.ie/.

The Geary Institute has asked me to announce that the conference on The Developmental Origins of Health, originally scheduled for October 10, has had to be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.  They regret any inconvenience caused.   If you have any queries about this, please contact the Geary Institute directly at geary@ucd.ie .

The Developmental Origins of Health Conference

Keynote Address by Professor James J Heckman

9.00 am-3.30 pm Thursday 10^th October 2013

Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, No 6, Kildare St, Dublin 2

On Thursday October 10^th, 2013, UCD Geary Institute will host a conference entitledThe Developmental Origins of Health. This conference presents the mid-term results emerging from a major European Research Council Advanced Investigator project led by Professor James Heckman at the University College Dublin, in partnership with the University of Bristol and the University of Essex.

Understanding the origins and the evolution of health inequalities is key to developing policies to promote human development. The conference highlights the work of aninterdisciplinary team of researchers who are active at the frontier of their disciplines ineconomics and epidemiology. This team is working together to create an integrated developmental approach to health which will allow us to understand the socio-biological determinants of health.  The conference presents innovative findings on the role of cognition, personality, genes, and the environment on health across the life course and across generations. Speakers will include Professor Frank Windmeijer(University of Bristol), Dr. Neil Davies (University of Bristol), Professor Steve Pudney (University of Essex), Dr. Orla Doyle (University College Dublin). The keynote address will be given by Professor James Heckman (University College Dublin & University of Chicago).

To register for the conference, please email: Carol Ellis atgeary@ucd.ie. Advance registration is essential for attendance at the conference, as numbers are strictly limited. There is no charge for the conference. Tea/Coffee and lunch will be provided.The deadline for registration is Friday 20 September 2013. For further details see UCD Geary Institute Website

Cormac O Grada recently blogged here about the link between recessions and health, citing a comment made by Brendan Walsh on an article in the BMJ.  Some more evidence in a couple of recent working papers.  One by Christopher Ruhm, who has written quite a lot on this topic (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2308256) and the other by authors from Georgia State University (http://ftp.iza.org/dp7538.pdf).  Both papers seem to suggest that the link between health (and health behaviours) and the economic cycle has become weaker in recent years, and at a macro level appears to be practically zero, though this masks some links for individual conditions.  This is not inconsistent with some of Brendan’s recent work for Ireland ( http://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/WP11_27.pdf) and some recent work which I did ( http://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/WP13_05.pdf, see tables 9 and 10 and figures 6 and 7) which indicate that the correlation between income and self-reported health appears to be weakening, particularly below the poverty line.  Following on from another recent post, the weaker link between health and income below the poverty line is not just because older people (who typically have poorer health) have seen their relative position improve during the recent recession.  The results also holds for under-65s.