W. Keith Bryant, expert on family behavior, dies at 87

Economist W. Keith Bryant, Cornell professor emeritus, co-author of an influential text on household economics and key figure in the establishment of a department that would grow to be a cornerstone of the Brooks School, died Sept. 13. He was 87.

“Keith was a pioneer in the study of how families make decisions on spending their time and resources and much of our understanding of consumer behavior stems from his research,” said longtime colleague Alan Mathios, professor in the Brooks School and former dean of the College of Human Ecology. “He was a delightful guy with a broad range of interests and a deep devotion to his family, to his students and to the Ithaca community.”

Bryant served as president of the American Council on Consumer Interests, a Distinguished Fellow of the council, and as a staff member of President Lyndon Johnson’s National Advisory Committee on Rural Poverty. He published in many major journals and, with Cathleen Zick, authored a widely used textbook, “Economic Organization of the Household.”

In a community message to faculty, staff and students, Brooks School Dean Colleen Barry and Rachel Dunifon, the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of CHE, described Bryant as an accomplished scholar and an effective advocate for the creation of the Department of Policy Analysis and Management (PAM) in 1997, a critical step in the evolution toward the creation of the Brooks School in 2021.

“We are grateful to Professor Bryant for his selfless service to Cornell, and we join his many friends and former students in extending our sympathies to his family,” they wrote.

W. Keith Bryant was born in 1934 in Guelph, Ontario. He received a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the Ontario

Agricultural College in 1957. During college, he joined the Universities Naval Training Division (of the Royal Canadian Navy) and was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant upon graduation. He was also awarded the Baker Dirk, for an outstanding naval cadet.

He received his master’s (1960) and doctorate (1963) degrees from Michigan State University. In 1963, he joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota as an assistant professor in the departments of Agricultural Economics and Statistics. From 1966-67, he served as a staff economist on Johnson’s rural poverty commission, where he led the research on rural and regional development.

“As a result of my experience on the commission staff and my continued research, I became increasingly doubtful that solutions to rural poverty could be found in rural and regional industrial development,” Bryant wrote in an article about his life. “I increasingly turned to researching solutions within the family.”

In 1974, Bryant joined CHE’s Department of Consumer Economics and Public Policy. He served as chair of the Department of Consumer Economics and Housing from 1989 until 1997, when it merged with the Department of Human Service Studies to form PAM. He also served as the first chair of that department.

Bryant is survived by his wife of 60 years, Marty; two children, Frances Elizabeth Bryant-Scott of Crete, Greece, and Michael Jonathan Bryant of Santa Clarita, California; and four grandchildren.

How security crises can spur state-building in Latin America

▲ Continued from page 6

Q: How do your findings provide a blueprint for developing states in Latin America and elsewhere?

A: Even in relatively weak states governments can generate the right conditions to increase tax revenue substantially while shielding the poor. The book also shows that this revenue can make a meaningful difference toward strengthening the institutions in charge of providing public safety. A major lesson for governments is that explicitly connecting taxation with public safety can be an important strategy to strengthen the state in both senses. However, governments’ ability to adopt taxes on economic elites will be severely diminished if elites’ concerns are not taken seriously, even in the context of major public safety crises. Consultation mechanisms and taxes properly designed to ameliorate these concerns will be more likely to succeed.

How much money is too much for obesity treatments?

▲ Continued from page 8

Although the prevalence of obesity is now 41.9% among U.S. adults, relatively few people receive these treatments. There are roughly a quarter-million bariatric surgeries in the U.S. each year, and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that only 660,000 of the 71.6 million people eligible to take an anti-obesity drug did so. The same GAO study found that, even among adults trying to lose weight, only 3% took a prescription drug for weight loss. There are several potential reasons for this low take-up. Bariatric surgery is invasive and has nontrivial side effects. Weight loss drugs are often not covered by insurance, which makes the new drugs very expensive for the consumer. And of course, patients may prefer to modify their behaviors (with diet or exercise) rather than undergo surgery or take a prescription drug.

Q: Why isn’t there greater health insurance coverage of weight loss surgery, drugs and programs?

A: Private health insurance companies look at the business case for covering obesity treatments, and one issue is enrollee turnover; insurers don’t want to pay for an obesity treatment just

Local floodplain home buyouts can inform federal plans

▲ Continued from page 7

The biggest takeaway is that communities need dedicated, longstanding programs to make the buyout process more equitable and responsive, Shi said. “Communities that start afresh after a disaster don’t have the time or capacity to be as thoughtful and inclusive,” she said. “FEMA can help communities not just by giving more money for implementation, but also building institutions at state and regional levels.” to have the patient leave their plan and then another insurance company reaps the resulting cost savings. Bias may also play a role; society may view obesity as a choice and a condition less worthy of coverage.

In addition to lead author Shi and Brenner, authors include Anjali Fisher, MRP ’21, King County, Seattle; Amelia Greiner Safi, associate professor of social and behavioral sciences, and public health practice in the Department of Public and Ecosystem Health, College of Veterinary Medicine; Jamie Vanucchi, associate professor, Department of Landscape Architecture (CALS); and Christine Shepard of The Nature Conservancy.

The following Cornell students contributed to research: MPA students Paul Corsi ’22, Pedro Fernandez ’23, Austin Reid ’22, John Tanis ’21 and Xinyue Wang ’22; master’s in landscape architecture student Katherine Ackerman ’21; and master’s in regional planning students Alec Faber ’22, Austin Ford ’22, Audrey Wachs ’23, and Hannah Wilson ’21.

This work was supported by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, where Brenner, Shi, and Vanucchi are faculty fellows.

Q: Is there a way to measure whether obesity treatments are cost effective, not so much for the individual but for the nation as a whole?

A: Absolutely. Studies calculate the societal benefits and costs associated with specific treatments, and a treatment is considered cost-effective if its cost per quality-adjusted life year saved (the standardized unit of how well medical treatments lengthen and/or improve patients’ lives) is below some critical threshold (historically, $50,000). The most common bariatric surgery has been found to be cost-effective, as have some but not all weight-loss drugs. Cost-effective treatments of obesity exist; the challenge is that health insurance coverage of them is spotty, and only a small percentage of eligible people are receiving them.