Rhema Vaithianathan

Professor Rhema Vaithianathan is a New Zealand academic who specialises in the field of health economics, and big data. She is a Professor in the School of Economics at Auckland University of Technology and is a co-director of the Centre for Social Data Analytics within that school.

Career

Tertiary education Vaithianathan gained a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics in 1989, followed by Masters of Commerce (First-class Honours) in Economics in 1995, and a PhD in Economics in 2000, all from the University of Auckland.

Vaithianathan received a PhD fellowship from the Health Research Council of New Zealand, Vaithianathan's PhD thesis, Economic Incentives and Clinical Decisions, studied the economic incentives of questionable behaviour in the medical profession.

During her PhD studies Vaithianathan won the McKinsey Prize for Best Paper at the Australian PhD Conference in Business and Economics in 1997, and the Jan Whitwell Prize for Best Student Paper in 1998. She also won the prize for the Best Doctoral Dissertation in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Auckland in 2000. .

Vaithianathan returned to the University of Auckland in 2009 as an Associate Professor.

In 2013, Vaithianathan joined the Department of Economics (now School of the Economics) at Auckland University of Technology as a full professor. her work with big data has received press attention.

Research interests Vaithianathan's research interests include: Douglas County Decision Aid: Rhema is leading the research team developing this predictive-risk model which will be used during child-welfare decision making. Unlike the Allegheny Family Screening Tool, this tool will not use fully integrated data.

Publications Gørgens, Tue, Xin Meng, and Rhema Vaithianathan. "Stunting and selection effects of famine: A case study of the Great Chinese Famine." Journal of development Economics 97, no. 1 (2012): 99-111. Hurley, Jeremiah, Rhema Vaithianathan, Thomas Crossley, and Deborah Cobb-Clark. "Parallel private health insurance in Australia: A cautionary tale and lessons for Canada." (2002). Vaithianathan, Rhema. "Health insurance and imperfect competition in the health care market." Journal of health economics 25, no. 6 (2006): 1193-1202. Lewis, Geraint H., Rhema Vaithianathan, Peter M. Hockey, Guy Hirst, and James P. Bagian. "Counterheroism, common knowledge, and ergonomics: concepts from aviation that could improve patient safety." The Milbank Quarterly 89, no. 1 (2011): 4-38. Vaithianathan, Rhema, Tim Maloney, Emily Putnam-Hornstein, and Nan Jiang. "Children in the public benefit system at risk of maltreatment: Identification via predictive modeling." American Journal of Preventive Medicine 45, no. 3 (2013): 354-359. Lewis, G.H.; H. Kirkham, I. Duncan and R. Vaithianathan (2013) “How Health Systems Could Avert ‘Triple Fail’ Events That Are Harmful, Costly and Result In Poor Patient Satisfaction”, Health Affairs 32(4), 669-676. Lewis, G., Vaithianathan, R., Wright, L., Brice, M. R., Lovell, P., Rankin, S., & Bardsley, M. (2013). "Integrating care for high-risk patients in England using the virtual ward model: lessons in the process of care integration from three case sites". International journal of integrated care, 13. Vaithianathan, R., T. Maloney, N. Jiang and E. Putnam-Hornstein (2013) “Using Predictive Modelling to Identify Children in the Public Benefit System at High Risk of Substantiated Maltreatment” American Journal of Preventive Medicine ‘Lewis, G., R. Vaithianathan M. Bardsley, et al “How Well Are Virtual Wards Integrating Care for High-Risk Patients? A Three-Site Case Study”, International Journal of Integrated Care (2013) Linthicum, Mark T., Julia Thornton Snider, Rhema Vaithianathan, Yanyu Wu, Chris LaVallee, Darius N. Lakdawalla, Jennifer E. Benner, and Tomas J. Philipson. "Economic Burden of Disease-Associated Malnutrition in China." Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health (2014) Dare, Tim, Rhema Vaithianathan, and Irene De Haan. "Addressing child maltreatment in New Zealand: is poverty reduction enough?" Educational Philosophy and Theory 46.9 (2014): 989-994. Ryan, Matthew, and Rhema Vaithianathan. "The Regulation of Direct‐to‐Consumer Advertising of Pharmaceuticals in a Managed Care Setting." Journal of Public Economic Theory 17.6 (2015): 986-1021 Maloney, T., Putnam-Hornstein, E., Vaithianathan, R., Jiang, N., & Dalton, E. (2016). “Black–White Differences in Child Maltreatment Reports and Foster Care Placements: A Statistical Decomposition Using Linked Administrative Data”. Maternal and Child Health Journal Cuccaro-Alamin, S., Foust, R., Vaithianathan, R., & Putnam-Hornstein, E. (2017). “Risk assessment and decision making in child protective services: Predictive risk modelling in context”. Children and Youth Services Review 79 Vaithianathan, R., Rouland, B., & Putnam-Hornstein, E. (2017). “Injury and Mortality Among Children Identified as at High Risk of Maltreatment”. Pediatrics 141(2). Rouland, B., & Vaithianathan, R. (2018). "Cumulative prevalence of maltreatment among New Zealand children, 1998–2015". American journal of public health, 108(4), 511-513. Reid, P., Paine, S. J., Te Ao, B., Willing, E., Wyeth, E., & Vaithianathan, R. (2018). "Estimating the economic costs of ethnic health inequities: Protocol for a prevalence-based cost-of-illness study in New Zealand (2003–2014)." BMJ Open, 8(6) Cheng, T., Li, J., & Vaithianathan, R. (2018). "Monthly Spending Dynamics of the Elderly Following a Health Shock: Evidence from Singapore". Health Economics. Lewis, G.H.; H. Kirkham, I. Duncan and R. Vaithianathan (2013) “How Health Systems Could Avert ‘Triple Fail’ Events That Are Harmful, Costly and Result In Poor Patient Satisfaction”, Health Affairs 32(4), 669-676. Cram, F., Vette, M., Wilson, M., Vaithianathan, R., Maloney, T., & Baird, S. (2018). "He awa whiria—braided rivers: Understanding the outcomes from Family Start for Maori". Evaluation Matters, 165-207. Vaithianathan, R., Hool, B., Hurd, M. D.,& Rohwedder, S. (2018). "High-frequency internet survey of a probability sample of older Singaporeans: The Singapore life panel". The Singapore Economic Review