Harkness Project Title: Should Personal Responsibility for Health Influence Access to Health Care? The Use of Wellness Incentives in U.S. Workplaces
Placement: Harvard School of Public Health
Mentors: Norman Daniels, Ph.D., Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Population Ethics, Harvard School of Public Health
James Sabin, M.D., Professor and Director, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Ethics Program, Harvard Medical School
Biography at time of Harkness Fellowship: Berit Bringedal, Ph.D., a 2010-11 Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, is senior researcher at the research institute of the Norwegian Medical Association. She is also part-time lecturer at Oslo University College and board member of the Western Norway Research Institute (Vestlandforsking). Bringedal’s research interests include priority setting and distributive justice as well as medical professionals’ health, behavior, and attitudes in health care. Previous positions include associate professor at the Institute of Health Economics and Management, University of Oslo, secretary for the Norwegian governmental committee for priority setting in health care, and visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Bringedal is author of 12 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including in Quality and Safety in Health Care. She holds a M.A. in sociology from the University of Oslo and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Bergen.
Project: Bringedal explored the question of whether and how personal responsibility should count in priority-setting in health care, particularly related to access. The project included a literature review on how personal responsibility is being promoted in U.S. health care, and interviews with decision-makers (employers, benefit design consultants, and physicians) about their views on personal responsibility. The interviews included vignettes to study how informed respondents choose to weigh different priority criteria regarding resource allocation in an experimental situation.
Current position: Senior Researcher, LEFO, Institute for Studies of the Medical Profession (Updated July 2013)
Email: [email protected]
Selected Publications
Eriksen II, Melberg HO, Bringedal B. Norwegian physicians' knowledge of the prices of pharmaceuticals: a survey. PLoS One. 2013 Sep 11;8(9):e75218.
Bringedal B. Commercialism, holism, and individual responsibility comment on "buying health: the costs of commercialism and an alternative philosophy". Int J Health Policy Manag. 2013 Sep 14;1(3):229-30.
Bringedal B, Tufte PA. Social and diagnostic inequality in health. Scand J Public Health. 2012 Nov;40(7):656-62
Bringedal B, Feiring E. “On the relevance of personal responsibility in priority setting: a cross sectional survey among Norwegian Medical Doctors,” J Med Ethics, 2011.
Bærøe K, Bringedal B. “Just health: On the conditions for acceptable and unacceptable priority settings with respect to patients' socioeconomic status.” J Med Ethics. 2011 Sep;37(9):526-9.