Nir Eyal

[ 1 ] - Non-physician Clinicians in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Evolving Role of Physicians

Responding to critical shortages of physicians, most sub-Saharan countries have scaled up training of nonphysician clinicians (NPCs), resulting in a gradual but decisive shift to NPCs as the cornerstone of healthcare delivery. This development should unfold in parallel with strategic rethinking about the role of physicians and with innovations in physician education and in-service training. In ...

[ 2 ] - Nudge, Embarrassment, and Restriction—Replies to Voigt, Tieffenbach, and Saghai

[ 3 ] - Nudging by Shaming, Shaming by Nudging

In both developing and developed countries, health ministries closely examine use of so-called nudges to promote population health and welfare. Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, who developed the concept, define a nudge as “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. ...

[ 4 ] - Sticking with Carrots and Sticks (Sticking Points Aside): A Response to Ventakapuram, Goldberg, and Forrow

[ 5 ] - Denial of Treatment to Obese Patients—the Wrong Policy on Personal Responsibility for Health

In many countries around the world, including Iran, obesity is reaching epidemic proportions. Doctors have recently taken, or expressed support for, an extreme ‘personal responsibility for health’ policy against obesity: refusing services to obese patients. This policy may initially seem to improve patients’ incentives to fight obesity. But turning access to medical services into a benefit depe...