Episode 21: Alexander Marin and the Dynamics of Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditures

We got the chance to record an episode with Alexander Marin and to talk about his working paper "The Heterogeneous Risk and Dynamics of Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditures" where he uses machine learning (multivariate random forest) and time series models (ARMA) to analyse healthcare expenditure trends in the US. We talk about how health care spending and the persistence of elevated spending following a health shock varies across different demographic groups, such as age, income, insurance status, and health conditions. We also briefly touch on the challenges of writing papers which are methodological contributions, and the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration. Lastly, Alexander shares a bit about his ongoing research related to the future of healthcare funding in ageing societies.

Guest: Alexander Marin, Postdoc at the University of Southern Denmark in the Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics

Hosts: Fanny Tallgren & Andrea De Palma

Timestamps: 

(01:49) Start of discussion of paper

(08:58) Methods used in the paper

(27:42) Results of the paper

(35:55) Alexander's work at the Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics