Health misperception and healthcare utilisation among older Europeans

Sonja Spitzer and Mujaheed Shaikh

The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, 2022, vol. 22, issue C

Abstract: Health misperception can have serious consequences on health. Despite their relevance, the role of such biases in determining healthcare utilisation is severely underexplored. Here we study the relationship between health perception and doctor visits for the population 50+ in Europe. We conceptualise health misperception as arising from either overconfidence or underconfidence, where overconfidence is measured as overestimation of health and underconfidence is measured as underestimation of health. Comparing objective performance measures and their self-reported equivalents from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we find that individuals who overestimate their health visit the doctor 17.0% less often than individuals who correctly assess their health, which is crucial for preventive care such as screenings. In contrast, individuals who underestimate their health visit the doctor more often (21.4% more). Effects are similar for dentist visits, but we find no effects on hospital stays. The results are robust to several sensitivity tests and, more important, to various conceptualisations of the health perception measure.

Keywords: Healthcare utilisation; Health perception; Overconfidence and underconfidence; Doctor visits; SHARE data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 H51 I11 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Health Misperception and Healthcare Utilisation among Older Europeans (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joecag:v:22:y:2022:i:c:s2212828x22000160

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeoa.2022.100383

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