The Relationship Between Economic Conditions, Access to Health Care, and Health Outcomes

Arild Aakvik

No 34, Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings from Econometric Society

Abstract: This paper analyses the impact of access to health care and economic conditions on health outcomes. Fixed-effects models are estimated using municipality data from 1996 to 2002. Health is proxied by total mortality rates divided into three different causes of death. Access to health care is proxied by number of physicians, and other medical personnel. We find an insignificant effect of per capital number of GPs on mortality. However, the number of vacant positions (unmet demand) in municipalities increases mortality rates significantly. Unemployment, which has been an important determinant of mortality in many studies, is found to have no effect on health outcomes in our data. However, other economic factors, such as the level of spending on health and social policy, has a significant effect on reduced mortality rates. In a policy simulation, we find that mortality rates can be reduced on average by 0.8 per cent by eliminating all (around 500) vacant GP positions

Keywords: GPs; mortality rates; municipalities; fixed-effect models; mortality; morbidity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-08-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-hea
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http://repec.org/esAUSM04/up.20938.1075222491.pdf (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: The Relationship Between Economic Conditions, Access to Health Care, and Health Outcomes (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecm:ausm04:34

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