International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Economic instability, income, and unemployment effects on mortality: using SUR panel data in Iran
This study aims to investigate the effects of socioeconomic factors on mortality in Iran. To this end, this research examines how economic instability, income, and unemployment affect mortality using a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) with panel data for 30 provinces in Iran from 2004 to 2019. The results indicate that unemployment and mortality have a countercyclical relationship among the working age-groups 20 –59 but a procyclical pattern among old-age (60+), except for rural mortality. This result is harmonious between employment and age-group mortality. This finding implies that unemployment increases mortality ...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - April 24, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Socioeconomic determinants of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance
AbstractThe aim of the paper is to evaluate the relative importance of the set of socioeconomic characteristics of population on collective decision on COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. We apply cross-section OLS methods to the municipal-level non-survey data for 145 municipalities in Serbia, on the COVID-19 vaccination rate and socioeconomic characteristics of the population, to evaluate the determinants of cross-municipal variation in vaccine uptake decision. Using the estimated coefficients from the OLS regressions, we apply the standardized beta method to evaluate the relative importance of each factor. Vaccine acceptance i...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - April 12, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Deprivation as a fundamental cause of morbidity and reduced life expectancy: an observational study using German statutory health insurance data
AbstractAcross all developed countries, there is a steep life expectancy gradient with respect to deprivation. This paper provides a theoretical underpinning for this gradient in line with the Grossman model, indicating that deprivation affects morbidity and, consequently, life expectancy in three ways: directly from deprivation to morbidity, and indirectly through lower income and a trade-off between investments in health and social status. Using rich German claims data covering 6.3 million insured people over four years, this paper illustrates that deprivation increases morbidity and reduces life expectancy. It was estim...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - April 5, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Does a sprawling neighborhood affect obesity? Evidence from Indonesia
This study combined individual-level longitudinal data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey and subdistrict-level land cover data to investigate whether a neighborhood ’s physical form affects individuals’ obesity status. We controlled for individual and location fixed-effect to account for individuals’ sorting preferences and unobserved heterogeneity at the subdistrict level. Our results suggest that a sprawling neighborhood corresponds to a lower body mass index, particularly among males. We also show that consumption behavior can explain this mechanism. (Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics)
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - March 30, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Contribution of high-technology procedures to public healthcare expenditures: the case of ischemic heart disease in Portugal, 2002 –2015
AbstractThe magnitude of the impact of technological innovations on healthcare expenditure is unclear. This paper estimated the impact of high-technology procedures on public healthcare expenditure for patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD) in Portugal. The Blinder –Oaxaca decomposition method was applied to Portuguese NHS administrative data for IHD discharges during two periods, 2008–2015 vs. 2002–2007 (N = 434,870). We modelled per episode healthcare expenditures on the introduction of new technologies, adjusting for GDP, patient age, and comorbid ities. The per episode healthcare expenditure was significa...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - March 29, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

The introduction of a minimum wage in Germany and the effects on physical activity participation
AbstractThe relationship between income and physical activity has been extensively studied. This paper utilizes the introduction of the minimum wage in Germany in 2015 as a quasi-experiment to determine the causal effect of minimum wages on the frequency of physical activity participation. Employing survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel between 2013 and 2017, regression-adjusted difference-in-difference models combined with matching techniques are estimated. Our findings reveal a notable negative effect immediately after the minimum wage implementation on physical activity frequency. Given that the introduction ...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - March 27, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Simple economics of vaccination: public policies and incentives
AbstractThis paper focuses on the economics of vaccination and, more specifically, analyzes the vaccination decision of individuals using a game-theoretic model combined with an epidemiological SIR model that reproduces the infection dynamics of a generic disease. We characterize the equilibrium individual vaccination rate, and we show that it is below the rate compatible with herd immunity due to the existence of externalities that individuals do not internalize when they decide on vaccination. In addition, we analyze three public policies consisting of informational campaigns to reduce the disutility of vaccination, mone...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - March 22, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Analyzing the 20-year declining trend of hospital length-of-stay in European countries with different healthcare systems and reimbursement models
AbstractThe study aims to investigate the last 20-year (2000 –2019) of hospital length of stay (LOS) trends and their association with different healthcare systems (HS) among 25 European countries. A panel dataset was created using secondary data from Eurostat and Global Burden of Disease study databases, with dependent and control variables aggregated at t he national level over a period of 20 years. A time trend analysis was conducted using a weighted least squares model for panel data to investigate the association between LOS, HS models [National Health Service (NHS), National Health Insurance, Social Health Insuran...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - March 21, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Strategic behaviour and decision making in competitive hospital markets: an experimental investigation
AbstractWe investigate quality provision and the occurrence of strategic behaviour in competitive hospital markets where providers are assumed to be semi-altruistic towards patients. For this, we employ a laboratory experiment with a hospital market framing. Subjects decide on the quality levels for one of three competing hospitals respectively. We vary the organizational aspect of whether quality decisions within hospitals are made by individuals or teams. Realized monetary patient benefits go to real patients outside the lab. In both settings, we find that degrees of cooperation quickly converge towards negative values, ...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - March 15, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

How to increase acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine among poor people in Africa?
This study aims to analyze whether good government management of the COVID-19 pandemic can increase the likelihood of vaccine uptake among poor people in Africa. The analysis is based on a sample of 18,010 people living in 34 African countries, drawn from data collected by Afrobarometer (Merged Round 8 data (34 countries), database, 2022). The econometric results, obtained using a bivariate probit regression, show that poverty significantly reduces the odds of accepting the said COVID-19 vaccine. However, acceptance of the vaccine increases among poor individuals when there is (i) trust in the government's published statis...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - March 7, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Women ’s empowerment, modern energy, and demand for maternal health services in Benin
This study analyses the extent to which modern energies improve women ’s empowerment and the demand for maternal health services in a low income country. The empirical estimations were based on the 2017 Benin Demographic Health Survey data. We adopted the trivariate recursive probit modelling to find out the extent to which modern energies improve women’s empowerm ent and the demand for maternal health services. The results revealed that the demand for maternal health services was significantly and positively associated with women’s empowerment. Notably, being an empowered woman (social independence and decision-maki...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - March 7, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Measuring household vulnerability to medical expenditure shock: method and its empirical application
AbstractTo investigate household vulnerability for inability to cope with medical expenditure shock, we propose a method of measuring household vulnerability to medical expenditure shock by allowing for the heteroscedasticity and dependence of medical expenditure shock and income shock. Using the data from China Health and Nutrition Survey, we estimate the vulnerability of Chinese households, and further investigate crucial characteristics associated with it by comparing the vulnerability levels among groups with different characteristics and an empirical regression with Shorrocks-Shapely decomposition of R squared. Our re...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - March 7, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Education and reproductive health: evidence from schooling expansion in Turkey
AbstractWe investigate the role of additional years of schooling mandated by a compulsory schooling expansion law in affecting reproductive preferences and safe reproductive health behaviors in Turkey —a middle-to-high-income country with gender inequity in education but overall high levels of safe reproductive health practices at the time of passing the law. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we find that the additional schooling improved several health behaviors. However, the effe cts on some outcomes commonly analyzed in the existing literature, such as contraceptive use or fertility, were either weak or i...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - January 5, 2024 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Has pharmaceutical innovation reduced the average cost of U.S. health care episodes?
AbstractA number of authors have argued that technological innovation has increased U.S. health care spending. We investigate the impact that pharmaceutical innovation had on the average cost of U.S. health care episodes during the period 2000 –2014, using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Health Care Satellite Account and other sources. We analyze the relationship across approximately 200 diseases between the growth in the number of drugs that have been approved to treat the disease and the subsequent growth in the mean amou nt spent per episode of care, controlling for the growth in the number of episodes an...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - November 8, 2023 Category: Health Management Source Type: research

Out-of-pocket expenditure, need, utilisation, and private health insurance in the Australian healthcare system
AbstractDespite widespread public service provision, public funding, and private health insurance (PHI), 20% of all healthcare expenditure across the OECD is covered by out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE). This creates an equity concern for the increasing number of individuals with chronic conditions and greater need, particularly if higher need coincides with lower income. Theoretically, individuals may mitigate OOPE risk by purchasing PHI, replacing variable OOPE with fixed expenditure on premiums. Furthermore, if PHI premiums are not risk-rated, PHI may redistribute some of the financial burden from less healthy PHI holder...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - October 11, 2023 Category: Health Management Source Type: research