Lauren Hersch Nicholas
lhnicholas.bsky.social
Lauren Hersch Nicholas
@lhnicholas.bsky.social

health economist, climber, biker, looking for my #econtwitter, #econsky, #surgtweets, #healthpolicyvalentines communities

Lauren Hersch Nicholas is an American health economist. She is a professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. .. more

Economics 35%
Public Health 33%
listen to CRR and read our paper on dementia's impact on household finances: www.nber.org/papers/w34659
Are female economists treated differently than males in academic seminars?

These authors wanted to know whether gender shapes how scholars are treated when presenting research.

So they built a massive dataset of 2,000+ economics seminars, job talks, and conference presentations from 2019–2023...

nothing helpful but you should keep posting pics, he looks adorable and we need more of that!
Next month, the AcademyHealth Health Economics Interest Group is hosting a webinar on navigating the job market for health economists. Here about what hiring committees look for when evaluating candidates. Also probably helpful for non-economists!

Sign up here: wustl-hipaa.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

important information about NIH advisory panels
🚨 New from me: Grant review at more than half of NIH's institutes could be frozen by the end of the year.

That's because crucial NIH grant-review panels are slated to be empty at those institutes by Jan 2027.

A wonky bureaucratic problem with big implications.

A short 🧵
Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026
Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.
www.nature.com
🚨 New from me: Grant review at more than half of NIH's institutes could be frozen by the end of the year.

That's because crucial NIH grant-review panels are slated to be empty at those institutes by Jan 2027.

A wonky bureaucratic problem with big implications.

A short 🧵
Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026
Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.
www.nature.com

I collaborated on my first qualitative paper to explicitly compare in a setting where AI had more appeal bc of 6000+ free text responses and the interesting (to me) takeaway was that AI was not good at "quoteable quotes" that tugged at the heart strings but decent at following rubrics

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

More on dementia & finances: similar to credit outcomes, we see declines on asset side start about 6 years before dementia onset, patterns are consistent with mistakes driving declines, not healthcare spending or spenddown
Household wealth begins to decline six years before the onset of dementia, largely because of poor financial decisions, from Jing Li, Kathleen M. McGarry, @lhnicholas.bsky.social, and Jonathan S. Skinner www.nber.org/papers/w34659
NBER @nber.org · 27d
Household wealth begins to decline six years before the onset of dementia, largely because of poor financial decisions, from Jing Li, Kathleen M. McGarry, @lhnicholas.bsky.social, and Jonathan S. Skinner www.nber.org/papers/w34659
If you want to focus on insurance company overhead and profit, Medicare Advantage is the market that stands out as an outlier.
www.kff.org/medicare/hea...
Forbes @forbes.com · Jan 5
Authorities at the CDC are now calling this year’s flu season “moderately severe,” with an estimated 11 million illnesses in the U.S. so far.
Flu May Be At Highest Rate On Record—With 5,000 Deaths As Vaccinations Have Lagged Behind Previous Years
Authorities at the CDC are now calling this year’s flu season “moderately severe,” with an estimated 11 million illnesses in the U.S. so far.
www.forbes.com

great article about AI vending machine failure, except for when it introduces "a revolution in snack economics"
Must read gift article below for my fellow AI luddites. These same companies want AI involved in healthcare 😵‍💫
"Profits collapsed. Newsroom morale soared."

Amazing piece from @joannastern.bsky.social

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...
Must read gift article below for my fellow AI luddites. These same companies want AI involved in healthcare 😵‍💫

I'm a co-I on an R01 that was funded at the end of the fiscal year, definitely don't want to talk about my submissions with fundable scores...

scary possibility
If new proposals detailed in an FDA memo are put into place, experts told me it would mean the end of annual flu shots. And end of most vaccines for pregnant people. And maybe the end of updates to pneumonia vaccines. And more.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...
FDA official proposes ‘impossible’ standards for vaccine testing that could curtail access to immunizations
www.cidrap.umn.edu
If new proposals detailed in an FDA memo are put into place, experts told me it would mean the end of annual flu shots. And end of most vaccines for pregnant people. And maybe the end of updates to pneumonia vaccines. And more.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...
FDA official proposes ‘impossible’ standards for vaccine testing that could curtail access to immunizations
www.cidrap.umn.edu
To quote Joe Biden, this is a big fucking deal.

www.aeaweb.org/news/aea-sta...
Statement from the American Economic Association
www.aeaweb.org
Multiple large natural experiments have documented Shingles vaccine is linked with ~20-25% reduced risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. A new report today adds to that and extends the to slowing the progression of dementia @cellcellpress.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
🚨Attention! AshEcon call for papers! 🚨
www.ashecon.org/2026-minneap...

Due date for abstracts: December 10, 2025

I'm the Program Chair for Health and Development, so would like to encourage global health scholars in particular

Some tips for prospective authors in thread below
2026 Call for Abstracts – ASHEcon
www.ashecon.org
If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features."

There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.
CSWEP strongly condemns Larry Summers’ behavior as revealed in the email correspondence with the late Jeffrey Epstein. While abuse of power in the economics profession is not new, rarely has the intent behind such abuse been so clearly stated.

I like them for extensions (another way to reference something longer with methods) and new facts that don't need full paper, don't like when people try to use them to get a paper out of something that should be a footnote or appendix in something else and -> more reviewer burden
I know that the job market is rough this year for Econ PhDs. @utoronto.ca has expanded its postdoc funding. If you are on the market and work on school finance or early childhood education and are interested in a PostDoc, let me know! #econsky #educsky postdoc.sgs.utoronto.ca/current-post...
Postdoctoral Talent Initiative – School of Graduate Studies Postdoctoral Fellows
postdoc.sgs.utoronto.ca
PSA for people with NIH grant periods starting January 1st (including most NIGMS MIRAs): your RPPR is due Saturday, but they haven’t sent out the usual automated reminders, presumably due to the shutdown

Me!

Reposted by Aaron Sojourner

Yes to all of these! And don‘t crowd tables with meaningless extra digits just because they are software defaults!
Short 🧵 on boring but imp topic: how to format tables! First, + most imp point: table in an econ paper should be comprehensible w/o any cross-reference to text. Variables should be clearly defined (not "lnconsexp"; write "Consumption)"; + specification described in notes
Short 🧵 on boring but imp topic: how to format tables! First, + most imp point: table in an econ paper should be comprehensible w/o any cross-reference to text. Variables should be clearly defined (not "lnconsexp"; write "Consumption)"; + specification described in notes
My research team has published research showing that malnutrition and hunger in childhood are long-term risk factors for dementia decades later in life. Makes me think about the long-term health consequences of withholding SNAP benefits from families.
Some authors have contacted AEA editors about an unexpected loss of data access that affects their ability to respond to an R&R. If this affects you, please explain the circumstances in your cover letter. Or reach out to the coeditor if you need guidance before resubmitting. @aeajournals.bsky.social

Sometimes I wonder why the editor didn’t have the same reaction, but maybe easiest to tell when it’s your immediate area?