Events
CCB 05-031, 5th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Health Policy Research Seminar: Sonia Bhalotra, FBA
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2026-09-10 12:00:00
2026-09-10 13:00:00
America/New_York
Health Policy Research Seminar: Sonia Bhalotra, FBA
Topic: "Antidepressant Treatment in Childhood."
Lunch will be served. While registration is not required to attend, we encourage you to respond so we can plan appropriately for catering. Please register here.
Mental health disorders tend to emerge in childhood, with half starting by age 14. This makes
early intervention important, but treatment rates are low, and antidepressant treatment for children
remains controversial since an FDA warning in 2004 that highlighted adverse effects. Linking
individuals across Danish administrative registers, we provide some of the first evidence of
impacts of antidepressant treatment in childhood on objectively measured mental health indicators
and economic outcomes over time, and the first attempt to investigate under- vs overtreatment.
Leveraging conditional random assignment of patients to psychiatrists with different
prescribing tendencies, we find that treatment during ages 8-15 improves test scores at age
16, particularly inMath, increases enrollment in post-compulsory education at age 18, and that
it leads to higher employment and earnings and lower welfare dependence at ages 25–30. We
demonstrate, on average, a reduction in suicide attempts, self-harm, and hospital visits following
AD initiation. The gains to treatment are, in general, larger for low SES children, but they
are less likely to be treated. Using a marginal treatment effects framework andMath scores as the
focal outcome, we show positive returns to treatment among the untreated. Policy simulations
confirm that expanding treatment among low SES children (and boys) generates substantial net
benefits, consistent with under-treatment in these groups. Our findings underscore the potential
of early mental health treatment to improve longer term economic outcomes and reducing
inequality.
Sonia Bhalotra is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. Her research has contributed to identifying elements of the micro-foundations of inequality and social mobility, with a focus on health and gender. She uses experimental methods on large data sets to illuminate decision-making in families, businesses and government, guided by the belief that good policy depends upon credible evidence. Contributions of her research include identifying maternal health as a source of non-randomness in twin births, long term economic impacts of treatment for depression, conditions under which unemployment benefits can reduce domestic violence, understanding why women do not leave abusive partnerships, how firms respond to sexual harassment legislation, how barriers to opportunity cap long run returns to childhood investments, how improvements in child health liberate women into fulfilling work, how low cost sanitation and nutrition programmes in infancy can lower the risk of chronic disease, how to prospectively select good managers, and the substantive impacts of political representation. Sonia is Fellow of the Royal Economic Society, the UK Academy of Social Sciences, and the International Economic Association. She is Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies London, Centre for Economic Policy Research London, Rockwool Foundation Berlin and CESifo Munich, and Visiting Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She serves on the Council of the Royal Economic Society, and on their Standards of Conduct Committee; she is on the Women in Economics Committee of the European Economic Association, Associate Editor of the Economic Journal, and she acts on a number of advisory boards.
CCB 05-031, 5th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Penn Medical Ethics
VIRTUAL
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "The Promises and Perils of Palliative Psychiatry: Implications for Psychiatric Ethics" - Daniel Buchman, PhD, MSW
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2026-09-15 12:00:00
2026-09-15 13:00:00
America/New_York
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "The Promises and Perils of Palliative Psychiatry: Implications for Psychiatric Ethics" - Daniel Buchman, PhD, MSW
The Promises and Perils of Palliative Psychiatry: Implications for Psychiatric Ethics
Daniel Buchman, PhD, MSW
Associate Professor
Dalla Lana School of Public Health, dept. of psychiatry
University of Toronto
senior Scientist, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Palliative psychiatry has emerged as a potential framework that applies the principles of palliative care for serious physical illnesses to people living with severe and persistent mental illnesses (SPMI). This talk examines the ethical foundations of palliative psychiatry and its implications for practice. First, Dr. Buchman defines palliative psychiatry and distinguishes it from traditional psychiatric approaches oriented toward symptom remission and functional recovery. Second, he identifies key ethical promises and perils raised by this emerging framework, considering its potential benefits alongside significant risks to patient welfare and clinical practice. Finally, Dr. Buchman outlines research, clinical, and educational priorities to guide the responsible development of this field. Dr. Buchman argues that careful ethical scrutiny is essential to ensure palliative psychiatry enhances, rather than undermines, care for people with SPMI.
VIRTUAL
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8-031 (hybrid)
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Medicine and East German Dictatorship, 1949 - 1990" - Ulf Schmidt, PhD
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2026-09-29 12:00:00
2026-09-29 13:00:00
America/New_York
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Medicine and East German Dictatorship, 1949 - 1990" - Ulf Schmidt, PhD
Medicine and East German Dictatorship, 1949-1990
Ulf Schmidt, PhD
Nucleus Professor of Modern History
University of Hamburg
Dictatorship under state socialism as it evolved was experienced differently by different people and sections of society. Taking an integrated history approach, Ulf Schmidt, author of Justice at Nuremberg, asks how the East German variant of a modern dictatorship worked in practice in the field of medicine and science. Were medical professionals aware that they were living in a dictatorship, and if so how did this influence their thinking and learned behaviour? How much agency did they believe they had? Did they know that their daily choices were not only contributing but defining factors in transforming the regime into what scholars have called a participatory dictatorship?
Drawing on newly-discovered correspondence and State Security files, this talk explores the relationships and underlying tensions between this dictatorial system and medical professionals who were managing, supporting, and resisting it in multiple, often highly informal ways. It explores how doctors and medical experts internalised and cultivated knowledge which helped to navigate, contribute to, and stabilise the regime through explicit and subtle forms of action and inaction. It critically examines those elusive bonds which linked people in myriad ways to the machinery of power and mass surveillance.
Ulf Schmidt is senior Professor of Modern History, Director of the Centre for the Study of Health, Ethics, and Society, and Fellow of the UK Royal Historical Society. His books include Justice at Nuremberg (2004), Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor (2007) and Secret Science (2015). His latest book on Rethinking Cooperation in Cold War Europe will be published by Bloomsbury in 2026.
Registration required; Streaming available via Zoom.
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8-031 (hybrid)
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 11-102AB (Hybrid)
Bronstein/Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): "Ethical Issues in Sociobehavioral Genomics Research" - Eric Turkheimer, PhD
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2026-10-06 12:00:00
2026-10-06 13:00:00
America/New_York
Bronstein/Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): "Ethical Issues in Sociobehavioral Genomics Research" - Eric Turkheimer, PhD
Eric Turkheimer, PhD
Hugh Scott Hamilton Professor of Psychology
University of Virginia
The Turkheimer lab studies how interactions between genes and environments shape the development of human behavior. We study many different aspects of behavior, but we are especially interested in issues involved in family life, including marriage, divorce and parenting. Other lines of research focus on the development of human intelligence and personality, particularly in the processes that lead siblings to become different from each other over time. We also study human personality in ways that don't explicitly include genetics. We are developing methods that allow richer and more individualized assessments of personality, and that control for the role played by self-esteem when people describe their own personality.
More detail to follow.
Registration required; Lunch provided
Streaming available via Zoom.
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 11-102AB (Hybrid)
Penn Medical Ethics
CCB 08-031, 8th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Health Policy Research Seminar: Caitlin Caspi, SCD
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2026-10-08 10:00:00
2026-10-08 17:30:00
America/New_York
Health Policy Research Seminar: Caitlin Caspi, SCD
Topic: "Wages, SNAP, and the Safety Net: Findings from a 5-year Study of Nutrition-Related Outcomes Among Low-Wage Workers."
About the Talk: This presentation integrates findings from an NIH-funded natural experiment examining the nutrition-related effects of a phased minimum wage increase in an intervention and comparison city. The study followed low-wage workers over five years (2018–2022), combining difference-in-difference analysis with nested qualitative interviews. Wages increased similarly in both cities, providing no evidence of a differential wage effect attributable to the minimum wage policy. Consistent with this, there were no policy-specific effects on body mass index, food spending, or most nutrition-related and health outcomes. At the same time, food insecurity declined substantially while SNAP participation and benefit amounts increased, particularly during the COVID-19 period. Qualitative findings contextualize these trends, showing how participants experienced changes to SNAP and the broader safety net during the study period. These supports provided meaningful, but temporary, economic relief. The presentation will integrate quantitative and qualitative findings to examine the challenges of evaluating a single economic policy within a dynamic policy environment and consider how wages, nutrition assistance, housing, and other safety-net policies interact to shape economic stability and health.
About the Speaker: Caitlin Caspi, ScD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences and serves as the Director of Food Security Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Heath. Dr. Caspi is a social epidemiologist focusing on evaluating policies and interventions related to food insecurity, diet quality, and weight outcomes. Dr. Caspi uses a social-ecological lens and a community-engaged approach in her work. Her research incorporates food policies and other social determinants of health to address inequities related to nutrition. Her food insecurity research is largely focused on U.S. food assistance programs and the charitable food system. She has also led several qualitative and quantitative studies aimed at understanding how non-food policies, such as minimum wage and COVID-19 economic relief measures, affect food insecurity and other health outcomes among households with lower incomes. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research program, and HHS Administration for Community Living, among other funders. She completed her graduate work at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. She joined the Department of Allied Health Sciences as Associate Professor in 2020, coming from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.
CCB 08-031, 8th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Penn Medical Ethics
To be added to MEHP's events listserv, please contact lisa.bailey@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.