Ep. 335 | Do Marathons Increase Deaths in Host Cities? The Unpredictable Factors Shaping Your Wellbeing - Data, Economics, and Chance with Dr. Bapu Jena
What role does chance play in your health and even your mortality? Find out from economist and physician Dr. Anupam B. Jena, who explores these fascinating questions in his new book Random Acts of Medicine.
Dr. Jena reveals how random events we'd never expect can profoundly shape our wellbeing. Discover insights like:
How marathons unexpectedly increase deaths for non-participants
Why minutes matter so much in heart attacks and other emergencies
'Left-digit bias' and its surprising influence on high-stakes life-or-death decisions
The role of big data in healthcare and the need for big questions.
How to differentiate between signal and noise in data.
This mind-opening conversation will give you a peek into Dr. Jena's creative process for conceiving questions and uncovering hidden insights about medicine. You'll learn how to foster your own curiosity and think in unexpected ways about health.
Tune in now to expand your mind through the unpredictable occurrences that secretly affect us all. The chance events that seem random but are often predictable when viewed through the right lens.
ABOUT Dr. Bapu Jena
Anupam B. Jena, MD, PhD, is the Joseph P. Newhouse Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and a physician in the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. As an economist and physician, Dr. Jena’s research involves several areas of health economics and policy including the use of natural experiments in health care, the economics of physician behavior and the physician workforce, medical malpractice, the economics of health care productivity, and the economics of medical innovation. Dr. Jena graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his MD and PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago and completed his residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is the host of the Freakonomics, MD podcast, which explores the “hidden side of health care.”
As a University of Chicago-trained economist, Harvard medical school professor and doctor, and host of the Freakonomics, MD podcast, Anupam B. Jena, MD, PhD is uniquely equipped to answer these questions. And as a critical care doctor at Massachusetts General who researches health care policy, Christopher Worsham, MD, MPH confronts their impact on the hospital’s sickest patients.
In RANDOM ACTS OF MEDICINE, Jena and Worsham show us how medicine really works—and its effect on all of us. In the spirit of Freakonomics, Cribsheet, and Noise, this singular work combines popular topics like behavioral science, health, and medicine through the lens of economic principles and big data insights to reveal the unexpected but predictable events that profoundly affect our health. Relying on ingeniously devised natural experiments—random events that unknowingly turn us into experimental subjects—Jena and Worsham do more than offer readers colorful stories. They help us see the way our health is shaped by forces invisible to the untrained eye. Is there ever a good time to have a heart attack? Do you choose the veteran doctor or the rookie? Do you really need the surgery your doctor recommends? These questions are rife with significance and their impact can be life changing. RANDOM ACTS OF MEDICINE will not only help readers gain a better understanding of how medicine is practiced or what motivates human behavior; it will empower them to see past the white coat and find out what really makes medicine work—and how it could work better.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Anupam (Bapu) Jena, MD, PhD, is an economist, physician, and the Joseph P. Newhouse Professor at Harvard. Jena hosts the Freakonomics, MD podcast, which explores the hidden side of health care. Christopher M. Worsham, MD, MPH, is a researcher, pulmonologist, and critical care physician at Harvard. Both practice medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Their research and writing have been published by the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
ABOUT THE BLUEPRINT PODCAST
The Blueprint Podcast is for busy professionals and Household CEOs who care deeply about their families, career, and health. Host Dr. Erik Korem distills cutting edge-science, leadership, and life skills into simple tactics optimized for your busy lifestyle and goals. Dr. Korem interviews scientists, coaches, elite athletes, entrepreneurs, entertainers, and exceptional people to discuss science and practical skills you can implement to become the most healthy, resilient, and impactful version of yourself.
On a mission to equip people to pursue audacious goals, thrive in uncertainty, and live a healthy and fulfilled life, Dr. Erik Korem is a High-Performance pioneer. He introduced sports science and athlete-tracking technologies to collegiate and professional (NFL) football over a decade ago. He has worked with the National Football League, Power-5 NCAA programs, gold-medal Olympians, Nike, and the United States Department of Defense.
Erik is an expert in sleep and stress resilience. He is the Founder and CEO of AIM7, a health and fitness app that unlocks the power of wearables by providing you with daily personalized recommendations to enhance your mind, body, and recovery.
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