Using data from employer-provided health insurance and Medicare Part D, we investigate whether healthcare utilization responds to the dynamic incentives created by the nonlinear nature of health insurance contracts. We exploit the fact that, because annual coverage usually resets every January, individuals who join a plan later in the year face the same initial ("spot") price of healthcare but ...

This paper estimates the causal effect of retirement on health, health behavior, and healthcare utilization. Using Regression Discontinuity Design to exploit financial incentives in the German pension system for identification, I investigate a wide range of health behaviors (e.g. alcohol and tobacco consumption, physical activity, diet and sleep) as potential mechanisms. The results show a long...

The past decade of research has demonstrated that a significant proportion of Veterans are returning from U.S. combat operations in and around Afghanistan and Iraq (referred to as Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation New Dawn [OIF/OEF/OND]) with mental health disorders, reintegration problems, and physical injuries [1]. While the Vietnam war heightened awareness of...

BACKGROUND Healthcare workers may affect the utilization of sexual and reproductive healthcare (SRH) services, and quality of care thereof, for example by their behaviours or attitudes they hold. This can become a hindrance to accessing and utilizing SRH services, particularly by young people, and thus a better understanding of these behaviours and associated factors is needed to improve access...

The study analyzed farm households’ access and utilization of government health facilities in Kogi State, Nigeria. Specifically, it described the socioeconomic characteristics of farm households, determined the level of accessibility to health facilities by farm households, and determined the factors that drive farm households’ utilization of government health facilities. A two staged random sa...

This paper studies three inter-related healthcare decisions: insurance, utilization, and expenditures. The model treats insurance as an endogenous variable with respect to both utilization and expenditures, addresses potential selection issues, and takes into account that the decisions to utilize healthcare and the level of treatment are determined by different decision makers. We employ semipa...

BACKGROUND Prenatal healthcare is likely to prevent adverse outcomes, but an adequate review of utilization and its determinants is lacking. OBJECTIVE To review systematically the evidence for the determinants of prenatal healthcare utilization in high-income countries. METHOD Search of publications in EMBASE, CINAHL and PubMed (1992-2010). Studies that attempted to study determinants of pr...