Project Manager
Norrgren, LisaProject manager
University of GothenburgAmount granted
235 000 SEKYear
2019
People have different preferences. Our preferences are part of our personality and allow us to be similar or different from other people. Time preferences determine how individuals value the utility of something now, in relation to the future. Empirically, it has been found that impatient people are more likely to regularly smoke cigarettes (Harrison et al., 2018) and exercise less (Leonard and Shuval, 2017). Researchers have also identified a causal relationship between high discount rate (impatience) and the likelihood of a person having an excessive BMI (Courtemanche et al., 2014).
This study aims to investigate the relationship between time preferences and adherence to medical treatment. Regular medication adherence is crucial for the successful treatment of many diseases. Our aim is to measure time preferences in Swedish HIV patients. The information will then be linked to the InfCare HIV database, which collects virus and immune system information from patients. Using our collected data, we will then investigate the relationship between how often patients miss taking their medications, their actual disease outcome and their time preferences. The correlation can be used to provide additional support for doctors to screen HIV patients who do not take their medication - before viral levels start to rise. Finding and quantifying early risk markers for these patients is important to ensure patient health and reduce adverse effects on others.