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Health insurance coverage and the use of preventive services by Mexican adults

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Author Info
José A. Pagán
Andrea Puig (Health Care Systems Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Beth J. Soldo (Population Aging Research Center and Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Abstract

The lack of health insurance coverage could be a potentially important deterrent to the use of preventive health care by older adults with high rates of chronic co-morbidities. We use survey data from 12 100 Mexican adults ages 50 and older who participated in the 2001 Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) to analyze the relation between health insurance coverage and the use of preventive health-care services in Mexico. Uninsured adults were less likely to use preventive screenings for hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes and (breast, cervical and prostate) cancer than insured adults. After adjusting for other factors affecting preventive care utilization in a logistic regression model, we found that these results still hold for high cholesterol and diabetes screening. Similar results hold for the population not working during the survey week and for adults earning below 200% of the poverty line. Our results suggest that insured adults are in a relatively better position to detect some chronic diseases - and have them treated promptly - than uninsured adults because they have better access to cost-effective preventive screenings. Recent public policy initiatives to increase health insurance coverage rates in Mexico could lead to substantially higher preventive health-care utilization rates and improvements in population health. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/hec.1226
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Publisher Info
Article provided by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in its journal Health Economics.

Volume (Year): 16 (2007)
Issue (Month): 12 ()
Pages: 1359-1369
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:16:y:2007:i:12:p:1359-1369

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Web page: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Martin Schellhorn, 2001. "The effect of variable health insurance deductibles on the demand for physician visits," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(5), pages 441-456. [Downloadable!]
  2. Alberto HOLLY & Lucien GARDIOL & Gianfranco DOMENIGHETTI & Brigitte BISIG, 1998. "An Econometric Model of Health Care Utilization and Health Insurance in Switzerland," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) 9803, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP.
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  3. Parker, Susan W. & Wong, Rebeca, 1997. "Household income and health care expenditures in Mexico," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 237-255, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Knapp, Laura Greene & Seaks, Terry G, 1998. "A Hausman Test for a Dummy Variable in Probit," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 5(5), pages 321-23, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. H. Shelton Brown & José A. Pagán & Elena Bastida, 2005. "The impact of diabetes on employment: genetic IVs in a bivariate probit," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(5), pages 537-544. [Downloadable!]
  6. Wu, Stephen, 2003. "Sickness and preventive medical behavior," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 675-689, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Coulson, N.E. & Terza, J. & Neslusan, C.A. & Stuart, B., 1995. "Estimating the Moral Hazard Effect of Supplemental Medical Insurance in the Demand for Prescription Drugs by the Elderly," Papers 04-95-01, Pennsylvania State - Department of Economics.
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  8. Ulf- G. Gerdtham, 1997. "Equity in Health Care Utilization: Further Tests Based on Hurdle Models and Swedish Micro Data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(3), pages 303-319.
  9. Sergi Jiménez-Martín & José M. Labeaga & Maite Martínez-Granado, 2002. "Latent class versus two-part models in the demand for physician services across the European Union," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(4), pages 301-321. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Jürgen Maurer, 2007. "Assessing Horizontal Equity in Medication Treatment Among Elderly Mexicans: Which Socioeconomic Determinants Matter Most?," MEA discussion paper series 07143, Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA), University of Mannheim. [Downloadable!]
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