Search

External threats are a major source of our experience of negatively valanced emotion. As a threat becomes closer and more real, our specific behavior patterns and our experiences of negative affect change in response to the perceived imminence of threat. Recognizing this, the National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Negative Valence system is largely based around different levels of threat imminence. This perspective describes the correspondence between the RDoC Negative Valence System and a particular neurobiological/neuroecological model of reactions to threat, the Predatory Imminence Continuum (PIC) Theory. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an illustration, we describe both adaptive and maladaptive behavior patterns from this perspective to illustrate how behavior in response to a crisis may get shaped. We end with suggestions on how further consideration of the PIC suggests potential modifications of the negative valence systems RDoC.

Recent research indicates that there is mixed success in using exposure therapies on patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our study argues that there are two major reasons for this: The first is that there are nonassociative aspects of PTSD, such as hyperactive amygdala activity, that cannot be attenuated using the exposure therapy; The second is that exposure therapy is conceptualized from the theoretical framework of Pavlovian fear extinction, which we know is heavily context dependent. Thus, reducing fear response in a therapist's office does not guarantee reduced response in other situations. This study also discusses work relating to the role of the hippocampus in context encoding, and how these findings can be beneficial for improving exposure therapies.

Nurse practitioners are important to the US healthcare system; however, many states impose physician oversight ratios, which limit the number of NPs a physician may supervise. In this study, we evaluate the effect of eliminating physician oversight ratios on the supply of NPs by conducting case studies of three states—New York, Nevada, and Pennsylvania—using synthetic control and related approaches. Surprisingly, we find that eliminating oversight ratios had little effect on the labor supply of NPs. For New York, we also analyze the effects of eliminating oversight ratios on wages and hours worked and again find null results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many states have recently changed their scope of practice laws and granted full practice authority to nurse practitioners, allowing them to practice without oversight from physicians. Physician groups have argued against this change, citing patient safety concerns. In this paper, we use a ratio‐in‐ratio approach to evaluate whether the transition to full practice authority results in harm to patients as proxied by malpractice payouts and adverse action reports against nurse practitioners. We find no evidence of such harm, and instead find that physicians may benefit from the law change in terms of reduced paid malpractice cases against them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we test whether the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions are associated with maternal morbidity. The ACA expansions may have affected maternal morbidity by increasing pre‐conception access to health care, and by improving the quality of delivery care, through enhancing hospitals' financial positions. We use difference‐in‐difference models in conjunction with event studies. Data come from individual‐level birth certificates and state‐level hospital discharge data. The results show little evidence that the expansions are associated with overall maternal morbidity or indicators of specific adverse events including eclampsia, ruptured uterus, and unplanned hysterectomy. The results are consistent with prior research showing that the ACA Medicaid expansions are not statistically associated with pre‐pregnancy health or maternal health during pregnancy. Our results add to this story and find little evidence of improvements in maternal health upon delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many states' scope of practice laws limits the ability of nurse practitioners to deliver care by requiring physician supervision of their practices and prescribing activities. A robust literature has evolved around examining the role of these scope of practice laws in various contexts, including labor market outcomes, health care access, health care prices, and the delivery of care for specific diseases. Unfortunately, these studies use different, and sometimes conflicting, measures of scope of practice laws, limiting their comparability and overall usefulness to policymakers and future researchers. We address this salient problem by providing a recommended coding of nurse practitioner scope of practice laws over a 24-year period based on actual statutory and regulatory language. Our classification of scope of practice laws solves an important problem within this growing literature and provides a solid legal foundation for researchers as they continue to investigate the effects of these laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a policy perspective, it is crucial to understand how changes in beer taxes affect retail beer prices. This study provides new evidence of the pass-through rate of state beer taxes to prices in a post-merger era. Our estimates that use state-level beer tax changes suggest that a 10-cent increase in beer taxes raises retail prices by about 17 cents. Comparable findings from the 1991 federal beer tax increase show a rise in retail beer prices of 19-22 cents. Our findings suggest that consumers fully bear the burden of increased beer taxes. (JEL H2, I0, D4), I. INTRODUCTION Alcohol excise taxes are a common form of taxation used by the federal government and state governments alike, serving the dual purpose of raising revenue and protecting the [...]

In this paper we consider possible links between the diffusion of new pharmaceuticals used for treating mental illness and crime rates. We describe recent trends in crime and review the evidence showing that mental illness is a clear risk factor both for criminal behavior and victimization. We summarize the development of a number of new pharmaceutical therapies for the treatment of mental illness that came into wide use during the "great American crime decline." We examine limited international data, as well as more detailed American data, to assess the relationship between rates of prescriptions of psychotropic drugs and crime rates, while controlling for other factors that may explain trends in crime rates. Using state-level variation in the rates that various drug therapies disperse within populations to identify impacts on crime rates, we find some evidence that the expansion of psychiatric drugs is associated with decreased violent crime rates, but not property crime rates. We find no robust impacts on homicide rates and no effects on arrest rates. Further, the magnitudes of the estimated effects of expanded drug treatment on violent crime are small. Our estimates imply that about 5 percent of the decline in crime during the period of our study was due to expanded mental health treatment. (Contains 7 figures, 7 tables, and 24 footnotes.)