CBA of hearing aids in connection with reducing the symptoms of dementia

 
   Lead Investigator:    Robert Brent
   Institution      :    Fordham University
   E-Mail           :    brent@fordham.edu
   Proposal ID      :    886



   Proposal Description:
   The plan is to carry out a CBA of hearing aids in connection with reducing the    symptoms of dementia.   Dementia is to be measured by the CDR scale sum of        boxes.  The MMSE will be used for a robustness check. An effective hearing aid    is one where the client can hear normally. Controls will be hereditary factors,   e.g., family and sibling dementia, height, apolipoprotein E (APOE e4) and         behavioral variables, e.g., alcohol, smoking, BMI, blood pressure. The aim is     to produce a causal estimate of hearing aids by using panel data with lagged      effects which are predetermined variables. Demographic variables, e.g., age,      gender, race, will be included as instruments for any variables that are          endogenous and these can be used to define the fixed effects in the panel data.   To value benefits, two methods will be used. The first method relies on cost      savings. Hearing aids lowers dementia which makes independent living more         feasible and this will lower the cost of caregiving and nursing homes.  The       second is to use the utility function related to the quality of life (proxied     by the GDS) which gives the trade-off between hearing and dementia. Putting a     price on this trade-off produces the monetary value of the change in quality of   life brought about hearing aids reducing dementia symptoms. The costs of          hearing aids will be taken from the literature.