Seth Seabury, PhD
Faculty Directory

Seth SeaburyPhD

seabury@usc.edu

Seth SeaburyPhD

Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics

Department of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics

Seth Seabury, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics at USC Mann and a senior fellow at the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics.

His work examines the impact of health on productivity and how healthcare policy and law impact delivery of care and patient outcomes. His research has been published in leading journals in economics, medicine and health policy, including the American Economic Review, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. It has also has been featured in major media outlets, including The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Seabury’s work on the impact of medical malpractice on physician behavior was used by the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the impact of tort reform on healthcare costs. He has testified to the U.S. Congress about earnings losses experienced by permanently disabled workers, and he helped the state of California design and implement a new $150 million per-year benefit program for injured workers. His research has been funded by the National Institutes for Health, the Institute of Medicine, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the California Department of Industrial Relations and the U.S. Department of Labor.

Additionally, Seabury is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has been a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance Workers’ Compensation Data panel, served on the National Occupational Research Agenda Public Safety Council and co-authored reports for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. He is an associate editor of the International Review of Law and Economics. Prior to joining USC, he was a senior economist at the RAND Corporation, where he was also the associate director of the Center for Health and Safety in the Workplace and a professor of economics at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

Seabury received his PhD in economics from Columbia University and received his BA in economics with highest honors from Kenyon College.

Areas of Expertise

  • Value of Innovative Treatments
  • Pharmaceutical and Health Economics
  • Health Care Policy
  • Delivery of Care and Patient Outcomes
  • Medical Care Spending
  • Education

    Columbia University

    PhD

    Kenyon College

    BA

  • Links
  • Selected Articles

    Rates of Eye Care and Diabetic Eye Disease Among Patients with Newly-diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes and Medicare or Private Health Insurance

    Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science
    William S Gange, Benjamin Xu, Seth A Seabury

    2019 Patients age 50 or older with newly-diagnosed Type 2 diabetes (DM2) from 2007-2015 were recruited from the Optum Clinformatics Database. All patients were tracked for 6 years: 1 year prior to and 5 years after the index diabetes diagnosis. Diabetic patients (n= 30,752) were matched to individuals with no diabetes diagnosis (n= 27,134) by age, sex, and race. Outcome measures included the receipt of eye care and incidence of ophthalmic complications, including diabetic retinopathy (DR) and diabetic macular edema (DME).

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    Measuring the Incidence and Prevalence of Uveitis and Scleritis in a National Medical Claims Database

    Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science
    Sarina Amin, Seth A Seabury, Narsing A Rao, Khristina Ipapo, Brian C Toy

    2019 Medical claims and demographic data were obtained from OptumInsight Clinformatics Data Mart, a national company managing private sector healthcare plans with over 57 million beneficiaries. Inclusion required continuous enrollment for at least 15 months within 2007 to 2015 (n= 21,516,133). Inclusion in the uveitis/scleritis sample required an index uveitis/scleritis diagnosis from an eye care provider.

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    Risk Factors for the Incidence of Uveitis in a National Medical Claims Database

    Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science
    Brian C Toy, Youning Zhang, Sarina Amin, Narsing A Rao, Khristina Ipapo, Seth A Seabury

    2019 Medical claims and demographic data were obtained from OptumInsight Clinformatics Data Mart, a large, national medical claims database. Inclusion required continuous enrollment for at least 15 months within 2007 to 2015 (n= 21,516,133). For inclusion in the uveitis sample, an eye care provider established the index uveitis diagnosis (index date). Patients with an index date within 3 months after incisional intraocular surgery were excluded (n= 137,536). For non-uveitis patients, an index date was randomly selected from the individual’s enrollment period.

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    Lifetime Economic Burden of Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis by Age at Diagnosis

    Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology
    Gary R Lichtenstein, Ahva Shahabi, Seth A Seabury, Darius N Lakdawalla, Oliver Díaz Espinosa, Sarah Green, Michelle Brauer, Robert N Baldassano

    2019 We collected data from 78,620 patients with CD, 85,755 with UC, and propensity score-matched controls from the Truven Health MarketScan insurance claims databases (2008‒2015). Total medical (inpatient, outpatient) and pharmacy costs were captured. Cost variations over a lifetime were estimated in cost-state Markov models by age at diagnosis, adjusted to 2016 US dollars and discounted at 3% per annum. We measured lifetime total and lifetime incremental cost (the difference between costs of CD or UC patients vs matched controls).

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    Recovery after mild traumatic brain injury in patients presenting to US Level I trauma centers: a Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury

    JAMA neurology
    Seth Seabury et al

    2019 To characterize the natural history of recovery of daily function following mTBI vs peripheral orthopedic traumatic injury in the first 12 months postinjury using data from the Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury (TRACK-TBI) study, and, using clinical computed tomographic (CT) scans, examine whether the presence (CT+) or absence (CT−) of acute intracranial findings in the mTBI group was associated with outcomes.

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  • Affiliations

    • Associate Editor, International Review of Law and Economics

    • Standing Member, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Healthcare Systems & Value Research Study Section

    • Scientific Reviewer, NIOSH World Trade Center Cooperative Research Agreements

  • Accomplishments

    Silver Award

    AMCP Abstract Awards

    Finalist

    ISPOR 18th Annual International Meeting Poster Presentation

  • Selected Media Appearances

    Many people with mild brain injuries don't get follow-up care

    Reuters | 06/04/2018

    “It is well known that the US healthcare system is fractured, and that there is often poor coordination between acute and non-acute care,” said lead study author Seth Seabury, of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles...

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    Most concussion patients get no care after leaving hospital

    USC News | 05/25/2018

    The lack of follow-up after a concussion is concerning because these patients can suffer adverse and debilitating effects for a very long time,” said Seth Seabury, a lead author of the study and director of the Keck-Schaeffer Initiative for Population Health Policy at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. “Even patients who reported experiencing significant post-concussive symptoms often failed to see a provider. This reflects a lack of awareness, among patients and providers, that their symptoms may be connected to their brain injury...

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    Minorities, Latino immigrants face the greatest risk of workplace injuries

    USC News | 02/09/2017

    We found that their risk was higher even when we accounted for education and other demographic characteristics,” said lead author Seth Seabury, director of the Keck-Schaeffer Initiative for Population Health at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “Disparities in economic opportunities for minorities lead them to take more hazardous jobs that raise their risk of injury and disability...

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    Spending more on patients lowers doctors' malpractice risk, study finds

    Science Daily | 05/25/2018

    "More and more we are relying on physicians to help eliminate wasteful spending in health care. However, if physicians perceive that lowering spending will subject them to greater malpractice risk, it will be that much harder to move the needle on health care spending," said Seth Seabury, an author on the study from the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics...

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