IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6409.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Spillover Effects of Drug Safety Warnings on Health Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Daysal, N. Meltem

    (University of Copenhagen)

  • Orsini, Chiara

    (University of Sheffield)

Abstract

We examine the impact of new medical information on drug safety on preventive health behavior. We exploit the release of the findings of the Women's Health Initiative Study (WHIS) – the largest randomized controlled trial of women's health – which demonstrated in 2002 that long-term Hormone Replacement Therapy increases the risk of heart attacks, stroke, blood clots and breast cancer among healthy post-menopausal women. Because hormone replacement is a therapy exclusive to women, we estimate the spillover effects of the WHIS findings on health behavior by means of a difference-in-differences methodology using men of similar ages as the control group. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for 1998-2007, we find statistically significant small negative spillovers on post-menopausal women's likelihood of having an annual checkup and choice of a healthy diet, as proxied by daily fruit consumption. Our results also indicate that the observed spillover effects of drug safety on health behavior were entirely driven by the less educated. These findings suggest that policies aimed at raising awareness on the safety of medications may have unintended spillover effects on health behavior and that these spillovers may contribute to the existing health disparities by education.

Suggested Citation

  • Daysal, N. Meltem & Orsini, Chiara, 2012. "Spillover Effects of Drug Safety Warnings on Health Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 6409, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6409
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6409.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lundborg, Petter, 2006. "Having the wrong friends? Peer effects in adolescent substance use," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 214-233, March.
    2. David M. Cutler & Robert S. Huckman & Mary Beth Landrum, 2004. "The Role of Information in Medical Markets: An Analysis of Publicly Reported Outcomes in Cardiac Surgery," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 342-346, May.
    3. Toshiaki Iizuka & Ginger Zhe Jin, 2005. "Drug Advertising and Health Habit," NBER Working Papers 11770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Gary S. Becker & Casey B. Mulligan, 1997. "The Endogenous Determination of Time Preference," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(3), pages 729-758.
    5. Marianne P. Bitler & Jonah B. Gelbach & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2005. "Welfare Reform and Health," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(2).
    6. Michael Kremer & Dan Levy, 2008. "Peer Effects and Alcohol Use among College Students," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(3), pages 189-206, Summer.
    7. Marianne Bertrand & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2000. "Network Effects and Welfare Cultures," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 115(3), pages 1019-1055.
    8. Alejandro Gaviria & Steven Raphael, 2001. "School-Based Peer Effects And Juvenile Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 257-268, May.
    9. Lisa E. Bolton & Joel B. Cohen & Paul N. Bloom, 2006. "Does Marketing Products as Remedies Create "Get Out of Jail Free Cards"?," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(1), pages 71-81, June.
    10. Duflo, Esther & Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "Participation and investment decisions in a retirement plan: the influence of colleagues' choices," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 121-148, July.
    11. Meltem Daysal, N. & Orsini, C., 2012. "The Miracle Drug : Hormone Replacement Therapy and Labor Market Behavior of Middle-Aged Women," Other publications TiSEM ce29046c-47bf-4f33-87af-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    12. Hemminki, E. & Kennedy, D.L. & Baum, C. & McKinlay, S.M., 1988. "Prescribing of noncontraceptive estrogens and progestins in the United States, 1974-86," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 78(11), pages 1479-1481.
    13. Powell, Lisa M. & Tauras, John A. & Ross, Hana, 2005. "The importance of peer effects, cigarette prices and tobacco control policies for youth smoking behavior," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 950-968, September.
    14. John E. Calfee & Clifford Winston & Randolph Stempski, 2002. "Direct-to-Consumer Advertising and the Demand for Cholesterol-Reducing Drugs," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(S2), pages 673-690.
    15. Rosemary Avery & Donald Kenkel & Dean R. Lillard & Alan Mathios, 2007. "Private Profits and Public Health: Does Advertising of Smoking Cessation Products Encourage Smokers to Quit?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115, pages 447-481.
    16. Lindgren, Bjorn & Stuart, Charles, 1980. "The Effects of Traffic Safety Regulation in Sweden," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 412-427, April.
    17. Espinosa, Javier & Evans, William N., 2008. "Heightened mortality after the death of a spouse: Marriage protection or marriage selection?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1326-1342, September.
    18. Ehrlich, Isaac & Chuma, Hiroyuki, 1990. "A Model of the Demand for Longevity and the Value of Life Extension," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 761-782, August.
    19. Andrew E. Clark & Youenn Loheac, 2003. "It wasn't me, It was them! A Study of Social Influence in Risky Behaviour by Adolescents," DELTA Working Papers 2003-01, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
    20. Leemore Dafny & David Dranove, 2008. "Do report cards tell consumers anything they don't already know? The case of Medicare HMOs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 790-821, September.
    21. David Dranove & Daniel Kessler & Mark McClellan & Mark Satterthwaite, 2003. "Is More Information Better? The Effects of "Report Cards" on Health Care Providers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 555-588, June.
    22. Pierre Azoulay, 2002. "Do Pharmaceutical Sales Respond to Scientific Evidence?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(4), pages 551-594, December.
    23. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    24. Lisa E. Bolton & Americus Reed II & Kevin G. Volpp & Katrina Armstrong, 2008. "How Does Drug and Supplement Marketing Affect a Healthy Lifestyle?," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(5), pages 713-726, August.
    25. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    26. Jason Fletcher, 2007. "Social multipliers in sexual initiation decisions among U.S. high school students," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(2), pages 373-388, May.
    27. Clark, Andrew E. & Loheac, Youenn, 2007. ""It wasn't me, it was them!" Social influence in risky behavior by adolescents," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 763-784, July.
    28. Michael Kremer, 1996. "Integrating Behavioral Choice into Epidemiological Models of AIDS," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(2), pages 549-573.
    29. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    30. Berndt, Ernst R, et al, 1995. "Information, Marketing, and Pricing in the U.S. Antiulcer Drug Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 100-105, May.
    31. Kristine M. Brown & Ron A. Laschever, 2012. "When They're Sixty-Four: Peer Effects and the Timing of Retirement," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 90-115, July.
    32. Viscusi, W Kip, 1984. "The Lulling Effect: The Impact of Child-Resistant Packaging on Aspirin and Analgesic Ingestions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 324-327, May.
    33. Davina C. Ling & Ernst R. Berndt & Margaret K. Kyle, 2002. "Deregulating Direct-to-Consumer Marketing of Prescription Drugs: Effects on Prescription and Over-the-Counter Product Sales," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(S2), pages 691-723.
    34. Wu Stephen, 2005. "Fatalistic Tendencies: An Explanation of Why People Don't Save," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-23, September.
    35. Schultz, Theodore W, 1975. "The Value of the Ability to Deal with Disequilibria," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 827-846, September.
    36. Rebecca M. Blank, 2002. "Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1105-1166, December.
    37. Kahn, Matthew E, 1999. "Diabetic Risk Taking: The Role of Information, Education and Medication," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 147-164, August.
    38. Peltzman, Sam, 1975. "The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(4), pages 677-725, August.
    39. Chernew, Michael & Gowrisankaran, Gautam & Scanlon, Dennis P., 2008. "Learning and the value of information: Evidence from health plan report cards," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 156-174, May.
    40. Toshiaki Iizuka & Ginger Zhe Jin, 2005. "The Effect of Prescription Drug Advertising on Doctor Visits," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 701-727, September.
    41. Viscusi, W Kip, 1985. "Consumer Behavior and the Safety Effects of Product Safety Regulation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(3), pages 527-553, October.
    42. Fletcher Jason, 2009. "All in the Family: Mental Health Spillover Effects between Working Spouses," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-21, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Meltem Daysal N. & Orsini Chiara, 2015. "Spillover Effects of Drug Safety Warnings on Preventive Health Care Use," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 1-30, January.
    2. Strombotne, Kiersten L. & Fletcher, Jason M. & Schlesinger, Mark J., 2019. "Peer effects of obesity on child body composition," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 49-57.
    3. Jason M. Fletcher, 2010. "Social interactions and smoking: evidence using multiple student cohorts, instrumental variables, and school fixed effects," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 466-484, April.
    4. Paul Frijters & Asad Islam & Chitwan Lalji & Debayan Pakrashi, 2019. "Roommate effects in health outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(8), pages 998-1034, August.
    5. Jason Fletcher, 2012. "Peer influences on adolescent alcohol consumption: evidence using an instrumental variables/fixed effect approach," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(4), pages 1265-1286, October.
    6. Benjamin Elsner & Ingo E. Isphording, 2018. "Rank, Sex, Drugs, and Crime," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 53(2), pages 356-381.
    7. Ana Balsa & Carlos Díaz, 2018. "Social interactions in health behaviors and conditions," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1802, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    8. Ana I. Balsa & Néstor Gandelman & Nicolás González, 2015. "Peer Effects in Risk Aversion," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(1), pages 27-43, January.
    9. Yakusheva, Olga & Kapinos, Kandice & Weiss, Marianne, 2011. "Peer effects and the Freshman 15: Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 119-132, March.
    10. Chih‐Sheng Hsieh & Lung‐Fei Lee & Vincent Boucher, 2020. "Specification and estimation of network formation and network interaction models with the exponential probability distribution," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(4), pages 1349-1390, November.
    11. Etilé, Fabrice & Jones, Andrew M., 2011. "Schooling and smoking among the baby boomers - An evaluation of the impact of educational expansion in France," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 811-831, July.
    12. Brekke, Kurt R. & Kuhn, Michael, 2006. "Direct to consumer advertising in pharmaceutical markets," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 102-130, January.
    13. Eisenberg, Daniel & Golberstein, Ezra & Whitlock, Janis L., 2014. "Peer effects on risky behaviors: New evidence from college roommate assignments," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 126-138.
    14. Balsa, Ana & Gandelman, Néstor & Roldán, Flavia, 2015. "Peer Effects in the Development of Capabilities in Adolescence," Research Department working papers 820, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica.
    15. Matthew Ryan & Rhema Vaithianathan, 2015. "The Regulation of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Pharmaceuticals in a Managed Care Setting," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(6), pages 986-1021, December.
    16. Kremer, Sara T.M. & Bijmolt, Tammo H.A. & Leeflang, Peter S.H. & Wieringa, Jaap E., 2008. "Generalizations on the effectiveness of pharmaceutical promotional expenditures," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 234-246.
    17. Ana Balsa & Néstor Gandelman & Flavia Roldán, 2017. "Peer and parental influence in the development of cognitive skills and predispostion to risky behaviour," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1701, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    18. Price, Joseph & Simon, Kosali, 2009. "Patient education and the impact of new medical research," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1166-1174, December.
    19. ÖZGÜR, Onur & BISIN, Alberto, 2011. "Dynamic Linear Economies with Social Interactions," Cahiers de recherche 04-2011, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    20. Ana Balsa, 2016. "Peer effects vs. parental influence in the development of capabilities in adolescence," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1609, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..

    More about this item

    Keywords

    preventive behavior; spillovers; health production; health disparities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6409. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.