U.S. Child Study Canceled After $1.3B • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Child Study Canceled After $1.3B

#41

Post by Fomite » Mon, Dec 22, 2014, 6:19 AM UTC

mkramlich wrote: post #40

Fomite wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the researchers are U.S. citizens, so in effect they are. Also, most NIH-funded researchers have gotten quite used to continual budget cuts, uncertainty, and needing to make every cent count. "Expensive" does not equal wasteful.

1.3B$ to observe a bunch of kids growing up, taking metrics of them periodically, sounds like some serious inefficiencies going on there

Compared to what? What some folks in SV will blow $1.3 billion on?

Cohort studies like this one have led to some major advancements in our understanding of disease - if you know anyone who takes aspirin to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease, for example, that came out of a cohort study. There is a tremendous amount we don't know about the development of diseases in childhood, life-course trajectories, the effects of environmental exposures that need well conducted, large sized studies - the large bit is important, as they need statistical power if anything will meaningfully change in terms of policy.

Re: U.S. Child Study Canceled After $1.3B

#42

Post by x0x0 » Mon, Dec 22, 2014, 7:38 AM UTC

lpolovets wrote: post #8

$1.3b to track 100k kids for 7 years. That's about $2k/child/year, which sounds insanely expensive. How can a study cost that much? You could buy each participant an iPad _every_ year and given them $100/month for filling out surveys, or you could hire 1 researcher for every 25 kids, which sounds grossly inefficient -- and you'd still be under $1.3b for 7 years.

The blood work at my annual checkup cost $600. Test blood twice a year, plus send a nurse out to get it, and you're in for $1300.

Monthly interviewing to monitor diet adds another couple hundred dollars.

Re: U.S. Child Study Canceled After $1.3B

#43

Post by Someone » Mon, Dec 22, 2014, 9:11 AM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #4

ams6110 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am glad to see that a decision was made to not throw good money into a bad project. They realized that the study as designed was infeasible. I did not see specific reasons but I can only imagine the difficulty of tracking 100,000 individuals through roughly two decades of life, and accounting for the untold number of uncontroled variables that would be present in such an effort. With research funding recently, it's…

It should be noted that there are a number of birth cohort studies ongoing in Europe, where single payer healthcare makes it dramatically easier to follow people.

AFAIK, in the EU, the UK is the only country that has single-payer healthcare (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care#Sing...), so I doubt that is the deciding factor.

My money would be on a) more people having insurance, b) having resident registration (that database will have errors, but in cohort studies, people spend lots of time trying to correct that for those in a cohort), c) people, in general, to have more trust in government, certainly where it concerns healthcare, and d) government more willing to look ahead further. I do not have supporting data for c) and d)

Re: U.S. Child Study Canceled After $1.3B

#44

Post by lostlogin » Mon, Dec 22, 2014, 9:27 AM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #42

lpolovets wrote: post #8

$1.3b to track 100k kids for 7 years. That's about $2k/child/year, which sounds insanely expensive. How can a study cost that much? You could buy each participant an iPad _every_ year and given them $100/month for filling out surveys, or you could hire 1 researcher for every 25 kids, which sounds grossly inefficient -- and you'd still be under $1.3b for 7 years.

The blood work at my annual checkup cost $600. Test blood twice a year, plus send a nurse out to get it, and you're in for $1300. Monthly interviewing to monitor diet adds another couple hundred dollars.

I'm not trying to start a USA bash, but I'm pretty sure cost of those bloods is not $600. If you wanted into a clinic and asked for a cash price I'm pretty sure it would be lower. I base this claim on looking at medical bills in a far away country with an utterly different system.

Re: U.S. Child Study Canceled After $1.3B

#45

Post by Fomite » Mon, Dec 22, 2014, 8:46 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #44

x0x0 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blood work at my annual checkup cost $600. Test blood twice a year, plus send a nurse out to get it, and you're in for $1300. Monthly interviewing to monitor diet adds another couple hundred dollars.

I'm not trying to start a USA bash, but I'm pretty sure cost of those bloods is not $600. If you wanted into a clinic and asked for a cash price I'm pretty sure it would be lower. I base this claim on looking at medical bills in a far away country with an utterly different system.

At the same time, the blood draws for this study are looking for things your average clinic isn't going to do for a walk in. And unlike the system in the U.S., or another country, this isn't being done for the patient's health specifically, but rather for research, so there is no subsidy, either from insurance or the government health system.

Basically, we have no idea how much it would cost.