Early diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease could save millions or even billions of dollars while simultaneously improving care, according to new work by La Follette School professor Dave Weimer and co-author Mark Sager, director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
David WeimerPatients with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias are heavy users of long-term care, with estimated annual costs upward of tens of billions of dollars nationwide. Governments — and thus taxpayers — bear much of the cost through Medicaid and Medicare. Earlier diagnosis and treatment could reduce these costs, the authors say.
Weimer turns his attention to social policy in a book he edited with Aidan Vining of Simon Fraser University. Investing in the Disadvantaged: Assessing the Benefits and Costs of Social Policies addresses the application of cost-benefit analysis to social policy. The MacArthur Foundation funded the project.
Experts, including Barbara Wolfe of theLa Follette School, examine 10 policy domains: early childhood development, elementary and secondary schools, health care for disadvantaged people, mental illness, substance abuse and addiction, juvenile crime, prisoner reentry, housing assistance, work-incentive programs, and welfare-to-work interventions. Each contributor discusses the applicability of cost-benefit analysis to actual programs, describing proven and promising examples.
In Taipei, Taiwan, in June, Weimer delivered the keynote address, “The Universal and the Particular in Policy Analysis Training,” to the International Comparative Policy Analysis Forum.
This article appeared in the fall 2009 La Follette Notes newsletter for alumni and friends.
— posted October 9, 2009