EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Socioeconomic Differences in the Adoption of New Medical Technologies

Dana Goldman and James Smith

No 11218, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: New medical technologies hold tremendous promise for improving population health, but they also raise concerns about exacerbating already large differences in health by socioeconomic status (SES). If effective treatments are more rapidly adopted by the better educated, SES health disparities may initially expand even though the health of those in all groups eventually improves. Hypertension provides a useful case study. It is an important risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease, the condition is relatively common, and there are large differences in rates of hypertension by education. This paper examines the short and long-term diffusion of two important classes of anti-hypertensives - ACE inhibitors and calcium channel blockers - over the last twenty-five years. Using three prominent medical surveys, we find no evidence that the diffusion of these drugs into medical practice favored one education group relative to another. The findings suggest that - at least for hypertension - SES differences in the adoption of new medical technologies are not an important reason for the SES health gradient.

JEL-codes: D6 H0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ino
Note: EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Published as Goldman, Dana and James P. Smith. "Socioeconomic Differences In The Adoption Of New Medical Technologies," American Economic Review, 2005, v95(2,May), 234-237.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11218.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Socioeconomic Differences in the Adoption of New Medical Technologies (2005) Downloads
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:nbr:nberwo:11218

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11218

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-31
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11218