Health disparities and direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical products

Rosemary J. Avery, Donald Kenkel, Dean R. Lillard, Alan Mathios and Hua Wang

A chapter in Beyond Health Insurance: Public Policy to Improve Health, 2008, pp 71-94 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: Health information drives crucial consumer health decisions and plays a central role in healthcare markets. Consumers who are better-informed about smoking, diet, and physical activity make healthier choices outside the healthcare sector (Kenkel, 1991; Ippolito & Mathios, 1990, 1995;Meara, 2001). Better-informed consumers also interact differently with physicians and other healthcare providers (e.g.,Cutler, Landrum, & Stewart, 2006). In addition to the immediate consequences for individual consumers, health economists have long recognized that information also has broader implications for principal–agent relationships and the functioning of healthcare markets.1More recent lines of research in health economics and medical sociology emphasize the potential role of consumer information in explaining health disparities associated with socioeconomic status (Deaton, 2002;Goldman & Lakdawalla, 2001;Glied & Lleras-Muney, 2003;Link & Phelan, 1995). Both health economists and medical sociologists stress that because of disparities in consumer information, rapid medical progress tends to be accompanied by increased disparities in medical treatment and health outcomes.

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.101 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.101 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.101 ... 0731-2199(08)19004-5
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:aheszz:s0731-2199(08)19004-5

DOI: 10.1016/S0731-2199(08)19004-5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().