Topics:
Expertise
Health economics, Applied econometrics, Epidemiological and economic simulation modeling, Impact evaluation, AIDS.
Bio
Mead Over is a senior fellow emeritus at the Center for Global Development researching economics of efficient, effective, and cost-effective health interventions in developing countries. Much of his work since 1987, first at the World Bank and now at the CGD, is on the economics of the AIDS epidemic. After work on the economic impact of the AIDS epidemic and on cost-effective interventions, he co-authored the Bank’s first comprehensive treatment of the economics of AIDS in the book, Confronting AIDS: Public Priorities for a Global Epidemic (1997,1999). His most recent book is Achieving an AIDS Transition: Preventing Infections to Sustain Treatment (2011)in which he offers options, for donors, recipients, activists and other participants in the fight against HIV, to reverse the trend in the epidemic through better prevention. His previous publications include The Economics of Effective AIDS Treatment: Evaluating Policy Options for Thailand (2006). Other papers examine the economics of preventing and of treating malaria. In addition to ongoing work on the determinants of adherence to AIDS treatment in poor countries, he is working on optimal pricing of health care services at the periphery, on the measurement and explanation of the efficiency of health service delivery in poor countries and on optimal interventions to control a global influenza pandemic.
In addition to his numerous research projects at the Center, Over currently serves as a member of PEPFAR’s Scientific Advisory Board and as a member of the Steering Committee of the HIV/AIDS modeling consortium funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
After leaving college, Over served in the US Peace Corps’ first program in Burkina Faso, where he worked with villagers in the construction of 25 water wells. While earning his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he spent one year as a Foreign Scholar in the Economics Department of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). After leaving Madison, he taught health economics, development economics, applied microeconomics and econometrics as an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics and the Center for Development at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts from 1975 through 1981 and as an Associate Professor of Economics at Boston University from 1981 through 1985, where he also held the position of Associate Professor of Public Health.
Recruited to the World Bank as a Health Economist in 1986, Mead Over advanced to the position of Lead Health Economist in the Development Research Group, before leaving the World Bank to join the Center for Global Development in 2006. Each spring since 2005, he has taught a module on “Modeling the Cost-Effectiveness of Interventions against Infectious Diseases” as part of the master’s degree program in health economics for developing countries at the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur le Développement International (CERDI) at the University of the Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
More From Mead Over
Pages
May 5, 2008
Publication
U.S. global AIDS spending is helping to prolong the lives of more than a million people, yet this success contains the seeds of a future crisis. Escalating treatment costs coupled with neglected prevention measures mean that AIDS spending is growing so rapidly that it threatens to squeeze out U.S. spending on other global health needs, even to the point of consuming half of the entire U.S. foreign assistance budget by 2016. Mead Over argues that AIDS treatment spending could quickly become a global entitlement since withdrawing funding for life-saving drugs would mean death for the beneficiaries. He offers suggestions for avoiding a ballooning AIDS treatment entitlement, including greatly stepped-up prevention efforts.
September 25, 2014
Blog Post
On September 23, the Washington Post aired a disagreement between the US Center for Disease Control Ebola experts and the Médecins Sans Frontieres Ebola doctors regarding the value of community Ebola treatment centers staffed with community volunteers for Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.
September 30, 2014
Blog Post
This Wonkcast was originally recorded on September 2, 2014.
As the Ebola epidemic continued to spread in West Africa, with more than 3,000 cases and 1,500 deaths, I invited CGD senior fellow Mead Over, a health economist and one of the world’s top experts on the economics of HIV/AIDS, to discuss newly released maps from the World Health Organization (WHO) and measures for limiting the economic fallout from the epidemic.
August 5, 2013
Blog Post
This is a joint post with Mead Over.
The World Bank is reorganizing. Bloomberg reports that president Jim Yong Kim has written staff about a shake-up at the bank’s highest levels in preparation for implementing an as-yet-to-be-announced new institutional strategy. Such can be unsettling for bank employees, some of whom will find their jobs on the line and others who may get new bosses. Is there any reason for the rest of the world to care?
Pages
February 27, 2016
Publication
This paper uses contract theory to suggest simple contract designs that could be used by the Global Fund. Using a basic model of procurement, we lay out five alternative options and consider when each is likely to be most appropriate. We ultimately provide a synthesis to guide policy makers as to when and how 'results-based' incentive contracts can be used in practice.
February 26, 2016
Publication
Controlling healthcare costs while promoting maximum health impact in the recipient countries is one the biggest challenges for global health donors. This paper views global health donors as the regulators of monopolistic service providers, and explores potential optimal fund payment systems under asymmetric information. It provides a summary and assessment of optimal price regulation designs for monopolistic service providers.
April 23, 2015
Publication
The South African government is currently discussing various alternative approaches to the further expansion of antiretroviral treatment (ART) in public-sector facilities. Alternatives under consideration include the criteria under which a patient would be eligible for free care, the level of coverage with testing and care, how much of the care will be delivered in small facilities located closer to the patients, and how to assure linkage to care and subsequent adherence by ART patients.
January 12, 2011
Publication
In this paper, the authors set out to study how increased access to antiretroviral therapy affects sexual behavior in Mozambique. The researchers found that greater access to antiretroviral therapy led Mozambicans to perceive HIV/AIDS as less dangerous and to engage in more risky sexual behavior. The authors conclude that prevention programs must include educational messages about antiretroviral therapy in order to temper changing beliefs about HIV.
January 6, 2011
Publication
Using panel data from Mozambique collected in 2007 and 2008, the authors explore the impact of the food crisis on the welfare of households living with HIV/AIDS. While HIV households have not suffered more from the crisis than others, infected people who experienced a negative income shock also expereinced a reduction or a slower progression in outcomes when treating their illness.
April 23, 2010
Publication
This paper proposes a cash-on-delivery approach to reward AIDS programs in accordance with the number of verifiable HIV infections they avert.
February 26, 2009
Publication
Senior fellow Mead Over estimates the effect of AIDS on poverty in South Asia and analyzes public policy options to help the region’s predominantly private health care systems meet the challenge of treating AIDS. He finds that South Asian governments should play a larger role in AIDS treatment than in other aspects of health care, in the interest of both efficiency and equity.
May 5, 2008
Publication
U.S. global AIDS spending is helping to prolong the lives of more than a million people, yet this success contains the seeds of a future crisis. Escalating treatment costs coupled with neglected prevention measures mean that AIDS spending is growing so rapidly that it threatens to squeeze out U.S. spending on other global health needs, even to the point of consuming half of the entire U.S. foreign assistance budget by 2016. Mead Over argues that AIDS treatment spending could quickly become a global entitlement since withdrawing funding for life-saving drugs would mean death for the beneficiaries. He offers suggestions for avoiding a ballooning AIDS treatment entitlement, including greatly stepped-up prevention efforts.
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