Ubel Receives Health Policy Research Award

Peter A. Ubel has been selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a recipient of a prestigious Investigator Award in Health Policy Research for 2008. Dr. Ubel, who was director of the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine, plans to examine how beliefs about quality of life affect the choices made when patients seek treatment, when payers determine coverage policies, and when policy-makers weigh programmatic or financial options. His project, Emotional Adaptation and the Goals of Health Care Policy, will introduce insights from well-being research, which studies how physical illness and emotional well-being are intertwined, to debates about cost-effectiveness of medical treatments, coverage decisions by payers, and discussions about health care priorities.