Bernard S. Black

Bernard S. Black
  • Northwestern University

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367
Publications
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17,348
Citations
Current institution

Publications

Publications (367)
Article
Introduction and Objective: We report time-series evidence on the effect of gaining Medicaid insurance on diagnosis, care, treatment, and intermediate health outcomes for diabetic patients, and compare effects for diabetic versus nondiabetic patients. Methods: We rely on difference-in-differences (DiD) analysis of visit-level healthcare records, be...
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Background Adults in the US face significant disparities in health as a result of the social determinants of health (SDOH). While the link between SDOH and mortality is well-established, their impact on outcomes after hospitalisation is less understood. Methods Among adults aged 18–84 years hospitalised in New York (NY) during the period of 2000–2...
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We study the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in a diverse population in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin from May 2021 to June 2022. We find that 99.4% (523/526) of the participants had positive results for antibodies to the SARS CoV2 spike protein over April-June 2022, soon after the early-2022 Omicron surge. Positive tests for spike protein antibo...
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Introduction: U.S. healthcare has experienced substantial growth in vertical integration (physicians employed by hospitals), but little is known about its effect on patient care. Aims: To assess the association between cardiologist vertical integration and patient outcomes, care quality, and utilization among patients hospitalized with incident acu...
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Importance Despite advances in treatment and care quality for patients hospitalized with heart failure (HF), minimal improvement in mortality has been observed after HF hospitalization since 2010. Objective To evaluate trends in mortality rates across specific intervals after hospitalization. Design, Setting, and Participants This cohort study ev...
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Objective To develop an accurate and reproducible measure of vertical integration between physicians and hospitals (defined as hospital or health system employment of physicians), which can be used to assess the impact of integration on healthcare quality and spending. Data Sources and Study Setting We use multiple data sources including from the...
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In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data‐generating process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidence‐generating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty—nonstandard errors (NSEs)....
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Background Rates of COVID-19 hospitalization are an important measure of the health system burden of severe COVID-19 disease and have been closely followed throughout the pandemic. The highly transmittable, but often less severe, Omicron COVID-19 variant has led to an increase in hospitalizations with incidental COVID-19 diagnoses where COVID-19 is...
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Prior research on racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 mortality has often not considered to what extent they reflect COVID-19-specific factors, versus preexisting health differences. This study examines how racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 mortality vary with age, gender, and time period over April – December 2020 in the US, using mortality...
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COVID-19 mortality rates increase rapidly with age, are higher among men than women, and vary across racial/ethnic groups, but this is also true for other natural causes of death. Prior research on COVID-19 mortality rates and racial/ethnic disparities in those rates has not considered to what extent disparities reflect COVID-19-specific factors, v...
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This paper estimates the effect of Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income receipt on mortality for individuals on the margin of being allowed versus denied benefits. Exploiting the random assignment of administrative law judges to disability insurance cases, we find that benefit allowance increases 10-year mortality rates by 2.8 perc...
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We study the experience with COVID-19 vaccination of an initially naïve population, which can inform planning for vaccination against the next novel, highly transmissible pathogen. We focus on the first two pandemic years (wild strain through Delta), because after the Omicron wave in early 2022, very few people were still SARS-CoV-2-naïve. Almost a...
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During 2005–2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission conducted a randomized trial in which it removed short-sale restrictions from one third of the Russell 3000 firms. Early studies found modest market microstructure effects of removing the restrictions but no effect on short interest, stock returns, volatility, or price efficiency. More recent...
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Israel was the first country to launch COVID-19 boosters, in late July 2021, with strong public health messaging. The booster campaign reversed rising infection rates from the Delta variant and reduced hospitalizations and deaths. The US booster rollout was slower, and public health messaging was mixed. We used the Israeli experience to ask the cou...
Preprint
Full-text available
We study here what can be learned from our experience with COVID-19 vaccination for an initially naïve population, that can inform planning for vaccination against the next novel, highly transmissible pathogen. We focus on the first two pandemic years (wild strain through Delta), because after the Omicron wave in early 2022, few people were still S...
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We take advantage of the Brazilian mandatory corporate governance (CG) reporting system to build an overall Brazil Corporate Governance Index (BCGI) and subindices (CGIs), and track changes in firms' scores over the 10-year period from 2010-2019. We show that overall CG level improved significantly between 2010 and 2019, with most of the improvemen...
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When does the past predict the future? In financial markets, warnings that “past results are no guarantee of future performance” are ubiquitous. But in multiple fields (including professional sports, insurance, and criminal law), it is widely believed that the past is a useful guide to the future. Does that insight apply to medical malpractice (“me...
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To make informed COVID-19 related decisions, individuals need information about their personal risks and how those risks may vary with specific demographic and health characteristics. The Fight COVID Milwaukee web-based risk assessment tool allows for assessment of COVID-19 mortality risk as a function of personal and neighborhood characteristics....
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Study objective: We describe emergency department (ED) visit volume, illness severity, and crowding metrics from the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic through mid-2022. Methods: We tabulated monthly data from 14 million ED visits on ED volumes and measures of illness severity and crowding from March 2020 through August 20...
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Objective U.S. drug-related overdose deaths and Emergency Department (ED) visits rose in 2020 and again in 2021. Many academic studies and the news media attributed this rise primarily to increased drug use resulting from the societal disruptions related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. A competing explanation is that higher overdose deaths...
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Starting around 2006, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) progressively reduced Medicare Fee‐for‐Service (M‐FFS) payments for the principal noninvasive cardiac tests, when performed in a cardiologist office (Office), yet kept payments flat to increasing for the same tests, performed in the hospital‐based outpatient (HBO) setting. T...
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Background Advances in technology and care quality have transformed the care of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), but little is known about trends in mortality rates across separate time periods after hospitalization. Methods and Results We identified all Medicare fee‐for‐service beneficiaries hospitalized with incident AMI from 2008 to 2018. We...
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Study objective: We estimate the economics of US emergency department (ED) professional services, which is increasingly under strain given the longstanding effect of unreimbursed care, and falling Medicare and commercial payments. Methods: We used data from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS), Medicare, Medicaid, Health Care Cost I...
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Prior research generally finds that the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) and Moderna (mRNA1273) COVID-19 vaccines provide similar protection against mortality, sometimes with a Moderna advantage due to slower waning. However, most comparisons do not address selection effects for those who are vaccinated and with which vaccine. We report evidence on large...
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COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives; however, understanding the long-term effectiveness of these vaccines is imperative to developing recommendations for booster doses and other precautions. Comparisons of mortality rates between more and less vaccinated groups may be misleading due to selection bias, as these groups may differ in underl...
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Importance: Many physicians believe that most medical malpractice claims are random events. This study assessed the association of prior paid claims (including a single prior claim) with future paid claims; whether public disclosure of prior paid claims affects future paid claims; and whether the association of prior and future paid claims decayed...
Preprint
Full-text available
Objective U.S. drug-related overdose deaths and Emergency Department (ED) visits rose in 2020 and again in 2021. Multiple studies and the news media attributed this rise primarily to increased drug use resulting from the societal disruptions related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. A competing explanation is that higher overdose deaths and E...
Preprint
Full-text available
COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives and prevented countless adverse patient disease outcomes. Understanding the long-term effectiveness of these vaccines is imperative to developing recommendations for precautions and booster doses. Comparisons between more and less vaccinated groups may be misleading due to selection bias, as these grou...
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We compare the online reviews of 221 “Questionable” Illinois and Indiana physicians with multiple paid medical malpractice claims and disciplinary sanctions with matched control physicians with clean records. Across five prominent online rating services, we find small, mostly insignificant differences in star ratings and written reviews for Questio...
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Power is an important factor in assessing the likely validity of a statistical estimate. An analysis with low power is unlikely to produce convincing evidence of a treatment effect even when one exists. Of greater concern, a statistically significant estimate from a low-powered analysis is likely to misstate the true effect size, including finding...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: In order to make informed COVID-19 related decisions, individuals need information about their personal risks and how those risks may vary with specific demographic and health characteristics. The Fight COVID MKE web=based risk assessment tool allows for assessment of COVID-19 mortality risk as a function of personal and neighborhood ch...
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Full-text available
Purpose of Review Diabetes is an ongoing public health issue in the USA, and, despite progress, recent reports suggest acute and chronic diabetes complications are increasing. Recent Findings The Natural Experiments for Translation in Diabetes 3.0 (NEXT-D3) Network is a 5-year research collaboration involving six academic centers (Harvard Universi...
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We examine whether caps on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases affect in-hospital patient safety. We use Patient Safety Indicators – measures of adverse events – as proxies for safety. In difference-in-differences (“DiD”) analyses of five states that adopt caps during 2003–2005, we find that multiple measures of non-fatal patient safet...
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Background: New medical technologies and advancements in care quality have transformed care of patients hospitalized with incident acute myocardial infarction (AMI). While some advances may impact short-term mortality (e.g., mechanical circulatory support), others may take much longer to impact mortality (e.g., cardiac rehabilitation). Little is kn...
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The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected the elderly. This Article provides a detailed analysis of those effects, drawing primarily on individual-level mortality data covering almost three million persons aged 65+ in three Midwest states (Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin). We report sometimes surprising findings on population fatality...
Preprint
Full-text available
In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data-generating process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in sample estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidence-generating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty: non-standard error...
Article
Full-text available
In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data-generating process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in sample estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidence-generating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty: non-standard error...
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Excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic have been largely attributed to cardiovascular disease (CVD); however, patterns in CVD hospitalizations following the first surge of the pandemic have not well-documented. Our brief report, examining trends in healthcare avoidance documents that CVD hospitalizations declined in Chicago prior to significant...
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We exploit a large legal shock to the board structure of Korean firms, using a strong research design—combined difference‐in‐differences and regression discontinuity—to study whether this board structure change affects firm financial reporting (disclosure, MD&A length, and abnormal accruals), investment and growth (sales growth and capital expendit...
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Objective Higher opioid overdoses and drug use have reportedly occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide evidence on how emergency department (ED) visits for substance use disorders (SUD) changed in the early pandemic period. Methods Using retrospective data from January–July 2020 compared to January–July 2019, we calculated weekly 2020/20...
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Objective We examine how emergency department (ED) visits for serious cardiovascular conditions evolved in the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic over January–October 2020, compared to 2019, in a large sample of U.S. EDs. Methods We compared 2020 ED visits before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, relative to 2019 visits in 108 EDs in 18 states in 115...
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We study the overlap between the medical malpractice (med mal) and medical disciplinary systems using the records of almost 90,000 Illinois physicians who held an active license at any point from 1990–2016. We quantify the specialty‐specific risk of having a paid med mal claim or a disciplinary action; how many physicians have both; and the extent...
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Examining the feasibility of developing an index measure for the social determinants of health using public data is needed. We examined these characteristics at the ZIP code in California and New York using public data extracted from the US Census, American Community Survey, the USDA Food Research Access Atlas, and the Dartmouth Atlas. We conducted...

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