Area Differences in Utilization of Medical Care and Mortality Among U.S. Elderly

Victor Fuchs, Mark McClellan and Jonathan Skinner

No 8628, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper examines 313 U.S. areas for differences in medical care utilization and mortality of whites ages 65-84 in 1990. The variables included in the analysis are education, real income, cigarette sales, obesity, air pollution, percent black, and dummy variables for seven regions and five population size categories from MSAs over 500,000 to not in MSA. Utilization, especially inpatient care, is strongly positively related to mortality. Mortality is positively related to cigarette sales, obesity, air pollution and percent black. Utilization (especially outpatient) is significantly higher in MSAs with populations greater than 500,000. Mortality does not vary with population size, with or without controls. Florida is an outlier for both utilization (very high) and mortality (by far the lowest of any region). The puzzles of Floridian exceptionalism and the positive relation between white mortality and percent black are discussed but not resolved.

JEL-codes: I11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-ias and nep-ltv
Note: AG EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published as Area Differences in Utilization of Medical Care and Mortality among US Elderly , Victor R. Fuchs, Mark B. McClellan, Jonathan S. Skinner. in Perspectives on the Economics of Aging , Wise. 2004

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w8628.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Area Differences in Utilization of Medical Care and Mortality among US Elderly (2004)
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:8628

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w8628

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 ().