Thinking about health as an investor might
A “proof-of-concept” study applying financial portfolio theory to U.S. biomedical research funding shows that the nation’s health might gain the largest benefit by increasing funding on heart, lung, and blood diseases, and might gain the quickest benefit by increasing spending on mental illness research. The work, published this month in the journal PLoS One, uses techniques long utilized by the investment industry, and for which the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded in 1990. James Watkins, an instructor in surgery at Harvard Medical School and a trauma surgeon at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said he got the idea for the study during the lulls that occur while waiting for patient test results. He began to think about where he would put his money if he had to invest it for the best health return, and realized the issue was a portfolio problem similar to that faced by investors, who...