Atheendar Venkataramani
Physician and health economist at Penn. I study opportunity, hope, and health. I am the founding director of @oppforhealthlab.bsky.social.
sites.google.com/site/atheendar/
- There are beautiful things that happen in the course of #research #projects. An insight that cracks an identification challenge or provides an explanation for a weird result or something that makes you say "aha! I understand humans!" We don't talk about these anymore. But that's where the fun is!
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniOne week from today!
- Next month, the AcademyHealth Health Economics Interest Group is hosting a webinar on navigating the job market for health economists. Here about what hiring committees look for when evaluating candidates. Also probably helpful for non-economists! Sign up here: wustl-hipaa.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
- I get there is a political economy to all this. But in the long-run getting at the truth is what serves us best. (Perhaps I am naive, especially with all that is happening in right now. Full disclosure: I say this as someone who has been told not to post papers because of inconvenient findings.)
- I've had so many conversations with people who are worried about the direction of #healthequity research -- the lack of rigor, the lack of theory, and overstatement of findings. Worse yet is the defiant attitude by some that any effort to push on nuance or causality undermines the project.
- "When researchers cannot specify and be transparent about what equity means in their work, it risks becoming an aesthetic rather than a commitment." Sharp piece by Choi et al outling several issues with contemporary research that have increasingly troubled me. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniStudying whether low-economic-mobility neighborhoods can be transformed into high-mobility areas through the HOPE VI program, which invested billions to distressed public housing developments, from Chetty, Diamond, Foster, @lkatz42.bsky.social, Porter, Staiger, and Tach www.nber.org/papers/w34720
- You can see my enthusiasm for #naturalexperiments wane over the course of this paper, even as difference-in-differences takes over medical journals. evidence.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniFor absolutely no reason, let me remind people of this banger of a paper by @caroartc.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.jp...
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniA return to the niche blog topics of yore: today in "lee bounds part 2", I discuss how to deal with binary outcomes and ties in multi-valued outcomes, as well as doing Lee bounds with multiple treatments. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniForthcoming in AER: Insights: "How Test Optional Policies in College Admissions Disproportionately Harm High Achieving Applicants from Disadvantaged Backgrounds" by Bruce Sacerdote, Douglas O. Staiger, and Michele Tine.
- Salience of sunk costs meets ChatGPT. (Paper in question: www.damianclarke.net/research/pap...)
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniI wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com
- It's incredibly disorienting to be told repeatedly that you didn't see what you saw with your own eyes. It's upsetting to see some other physicians justify the events in Minneapolis. It makes me wonder what oath they took. Last week I was worried about some R&Rs. Feels so quaint.
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani📅 Don't miss our symposium exploring Why Wealth Inequality Matters on Tuesday, January 27 from 1-5 PM EST. Register to join us in person at MIT or watch the livestream: shapingwork.mit.edu/events/why-w...
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniMy friend Sara posted this about the superb care her father received from with Alex Pretti Absolutely heartbreaking
- Murdering innocents and then lying about it. The current administration is the deepest threat to American freedom in my lifetime. We have been heading in this direction for over 40 yrs, with the pace turbocharged by a corrupt and cruel set of actors. It will take us all to reverse course.
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniAlex from our time working together, while he was in nursing school. Later, he moved to ICU, working as a nurse to support critically ill Veterans. He had such a great attitude. We’d chat between patients about trying to get in a mountain bike ride together. Will never happen now
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniWe spent months (years?) talking about how covid would affect our children - their schooling, their mental health etc. I don't even know where to begin to support kids who are living in fear right now. Is someone working on this?
- they went to an emergency room seeking help for their 7 year old child. ICE arrested the 7 year old and her parents. the family is here legally. www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...
- does anyone have a good paper/piece on how US is losing the race between #education and #technology and policy options to address it? #econsky
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani
[Not loaded yet] - Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- So, for the last 2ish years I've implemented the advice in this @nature.com column to reduce the number of papers I am writing. www.nature.com/articles/d41... Here's how that went (🧵)
- Sometimes the only thing to learn from a rejection is that other people can be wrong. If you believe in your idea, keep going.
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramaniif i could make you read ONE (1) single post to improve your understanding of the challenges of social science in general it would be this one from @markfabian.bsky.social about wellbeing science specifically profmarkfabian.substack.com/p/airing-my-...
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- My entire vibe for 2026 will be to show that #great things are still #possible when it comes to improving #population #health. My message to #researchers is to work on big substantive questions and deep science. There is always someone out there looking for #evidence to make things #better.
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniI'll be discussing the role of immigration in the US workforce with a fantastic set of panelists on Jan 30! I'll talk about why anti-immigration policies make Social Security and Medicare solvency worse .... & why we shouldn't make decisions about humans based only on their fiscal impact
- Join us online on January 30 at 12pm ET for this panel of scientists to provide a demographic overview of the U.S. immigrant population. See the panelists and register here: buff.ly/elJ7uTd @fertmortmig.bsky.social @chloeneast.bsky.social
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar VenkataramaniNever underestimate the quest for knowledge no matter how irrelevant it may seem in the moment If I hadn’t gone to a public university, I honestly wouldn’t have ever bothered to watch a basketball game. But now? “Boxing out” is a top ten skills for boarding public transportation
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- A discussant who knew the way to my heart. #ASSA2026
- I am presenting this at the #ASSA meeting tomorrow -- 15 years after I first presented an earlier version at the same conference. In between I've had a family and a whole career. Play the "Top 5" game at your own risk, kids.
- The Pittsburgh #Steelers are like the Barden Bellas pre-Anna Kendrick. Predictable, somehow good and lucky enough to be in the conversation, but not great enough to go the distance. I want to believe again.
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- If you are interested: -In a multi-level community #intervention that dramatically reduced #crime and has an MVPF of ♾️ or -A new measure of #wellbeing that strongly and independently predicts #health or -new insights on the #population health in the U.S. and its drivers then stay tuned.
- I am presenting this at the #ASSA meeting tomorrow -- 15 years after I first presented an earlier version at the same conference. In between I've had a family and a whole career. Play the "Top 5" game at your own risk, kids.
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- It's neat how you can leverage qualitative historical analysis Our ppr: ⬆️ early exposure to #antibiotics, ⬇️ pneumonia in infancy, ⬆️ long-run economic outcomes. Historical record: pharmacists shaped access to antibiotics Our data: long-run impacts ⬆️ with baseline shr of pharmacists per cap.
- IT LIVES! First draft: 2011 This draft: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xh3sg... In between: 12 years of being under review (of which half are on us). +1 coauthor. For me personally: a few moves, a few jobs, a few kids.
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Atheendar Venkataramani[Not loaded yet]
- IT LIVES! First draft: 2011 This draft: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xh3sg... In between: 12 years of being under review (of which half are on us). +1 coauthor. For me personally: a few moves, a few jobs, a few kids.
