| Project: Understanding Food Choices and Dietary Decisions: A Behavioral Approach |
| Award Year: 2006 |
| Amount of award, fiscal 2006: $75,000.00 |
| Institution: Carnegie Mellon University |
| Principal Investigator: George Lowenstein |
| Status: Completed |
| Detailed Objective: Diet-related health conditions account for a large share of morbidity and mortality and associated medical expenditures in the United States. Although the health effects of dietary choices are increasingly well-known, significant sections of the U.S. population consume suboptimal diets characterized by overconsumption and poor overall dietary quality. Many salient features of dietary choice are not adequately explained by the standard discounted utility model of health behavior. Behavioral economics offers new tools and insights to explain human choices and decisions that appear to be contradictory to self-interest. However, the tools and methods developed in the field have not been widely used to explain the economics of dietary choices and related health behaviors. This project sponsors a workshop that brings together behavioral economists, psychologists, and decision science experts in a cross-cutting effort to enhance the economic analysis of food choices, dietary behavior, and diet-related health outcomes, with a special focus on decisionmaking among low-income people. |
| Topic: Behavioral Economics, Conferences and Workshops, Dietary Intake and Quality |