IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v125y2021i8p1092-1099.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Territorial differences in access to prenatal care and health at birth

Author

Listed:
  • Bertoli, Paola
  • Grembi, Veronica

Abstract

We assess the impact of prenatal care on health at birth using birth certificates from the Czech Republic. We use a predictive machine learning algorithm to identify the observables affecting birth health outcomes. We control for those observables in our empirical analysis, which indicates that a more intense use of prenatal care is positively correlated with better health outcomes at birth. Exploiting the Czech adhesion to the EU in 2004, we construct an instrument to capture the geographical heterogeneous access to prenatal care across districts. Differently from the OLS results, the IV results do not capture any significant effect of prenatal care, leaving room for the hidden role of unobservable mothers’ characteristics when it comes to health behaviors during pregnancy.

Suggested Citation

  • Bertoli, Paola & Grembi, Veronica, 2021. "Territorial differences in access to prenatal care and health at birth," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(8), pages 1092-1099.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:125:y:2021:i:8:p:1092-1099
    DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2021.05.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851021001330
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.healthpol.2021.05.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Currie, Janet & Grogger, Jeffrey, 2002. "Medicaid expansions and welfare contractions: offsetting effects on prenatal care and infant health?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 313-335, March.
    2. Janet Currie, 2009. "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Socioeconomic Status, Poor Health in Childhood, and Human Capital Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 87-122, March.
    3. Almond, Douglas & Currie, Janet & Herrmann, Mariesa, 2012. "From infant to mother: Early disease environment and future maternal health," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 475-483.
    4. Hope Corman & Theodore J. Joyce & Michael Grossman, 1987. "Birth Outcome Production Function in the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 22(3), pages 339-360.
    5. Grossman, Michael & Joyce, Theodore J, 1990. "Unobservables, Pregnancy Resolutions, and Birth Weight Production Functions in New York City," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 983-1007, October.
    6. Karen Smith Conway & Andrea Kutinova, 2006. "Maternal health: does prenatal care make a difference?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(5), pages 461-488, May.
    7. Douglas Almond & Kenneth Y. Chay & David S. Lee, 2005. "The Costs of Low Birth Weight," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 1031-1083.
    8. Nancy E. Reichman & Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan & Dhaval Dave, 2009. "Infant health production functions: what a difference the data make," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(7), pages 761-782, July.
    9. Sonchak, Lyudmyla, 2015. "Medicaid reimbursement, prenatal care and infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 10-24.
    10. Janet Currie & W. Bentley MacLeod, 2017. "Diagnosing Expertise: Human Capital, Decision Making, and Performance among Physicians," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 1-43.
    11. Sendhil Mullainathan & Jann Spiess, 2017. "Machine Learning: An Applied Econometric Approach," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 87-106, Spring.
    12. Conway, Karen Smith & Deb, Partha, 2005. "Is prenatal care really ineffective? Or, is the 'devil' in the distribution?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 489-513, May.
    13. Jere R. Behrman & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2004. "Returns to Birthweight," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 586-601, May.
    14. Evans, William N. & Lien, Diana S., 2005. "The benefits of prenatal care: evidence from the PAT bus strike," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 207-239.
    15. Douglas Almond & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2011. "Health Capital and the Prenatal Environment: The Effect of Ramadan Observance during Pregnancy," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 56-85, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shi, Hon-Yi & Yeh, Shu-Chuan Jennifer & Chou, Hsueh-Chih & Wang, Wen Chun, 2023. "Long-term care insurance purchase decisions of registered nurses: Deep learning versus logistic regression models," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

    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. Hope Corman & Dhaval Dave & Nancy E. Reichman, 2018. "Evolution of the Infant Health Production Function," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 6-47, July.
    2. Bertoli, P.; Grembi, V.; Kazakis, P.;, 2017. "Healthy Immigrant Effect or Over-Medicalization of Pregnancy? Evidence from Birth Certificates," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 17/26, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Ji Yan, 2017. "Healthy Babies: Does Prenatal Care Really Matter?," Working Papers 17-09, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    4. Cygan-Rehm, Kamila & Karbownik, Krzysztof, 2022. "The effects of incentivizing early prenatal care on infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Lautharte, Ildo, 2021. "Babies and Bandidos: Birth outcomes in pacified favelas of Rio de Janeiro," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    6. Sonchak, Lyudmyla, 2015. "Medicaid reimbursement, prenatal care and infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 10-24.
    7. Tim Bersak & Lyudmyla Sonchak‐Ardan, 2022. "Prenatal care: Mechanisms and impacts on infant health and health care utilization," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(1), pages 48-65, January.
    8. Mark E. Mcgovern, 2013. "Still Unequal at Birth: Birth Weight,Socio-economic Status and Outcomes at Age 9," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 44(1), pages 53-84.
    9. Anne Ardila Brenøe & Ramona Molitor, 2018. "Birth order and health of newborns," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(2), pages 363-395, April.
    10. Emilia Del Bono & John Ermisch & Marco Francesconi, 2012. "Intrafamily Resource Allocations: A Dynamic Structural Model of Birth Weight," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(3), pages 657-706.
    11. Buckles, Kasey, 2017. "Maternal Socio-Economic Status and the Well-Being of the Next Generation(s)," IZA Discussion Papers 10714, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Aparna Lhila & Sharon Long, 2012. "What is driving the black–white difference in low birthweight in the US?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 301-315, March.
    13. Makayla Palmer, 2020. "Preconception subsidized insurance: Prenatal care and birth outcomes by race/ethnicity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(9), pages 1013-1030, September.
    14. Gabriella Conti & Mark Hanson & Hazel Inskip & Sarah Crozier & Cyrus Cooper & Keith Godfrey, 2018. "Beyond Birth Weight: The Origins of Human Capital," Working Papers 2018-089, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    15. Andalón, Mabel & Azevedo, João Pedro & Rodríguez-Castelán, Carlos & Sanfelice, Viviane & Valderrama-González, Daniel, 2016. "Weather Shocks and Health at Birth in Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 69-82.
    16. Ji Yan, 2015. "The Earlier and the More, the Healthier? The Effects of Prenatal Care Utilization on Maternal Health and Health Behaviors," Working Papers 15-08, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    17. Liu, Tsai-Ching & Chen, Bradley & Chan, Yun-Shan & Chen, Chin-Shyan, 2015. "Does prenatal care benefit maternal health? A study of post-partum maternal care use," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(10), pages 1382-1389.
    18. Viviane Sanfelice, 2022. "Mosquito‐borne disease and newborn health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 73-93, January.
    19. Nancy Reichman & Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan & Ofira Schwartz-Soicher, 2010. "Effects of prenatal care on maternal postpartum behaviors," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 171-197, June.
    20. Møllegaard, Stine, 2020. "The effect of birth weight on behavioral problems in early adolescence: New evidence from monozygotic twins," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Prenatal care; Health at birthsep instrumental variable;

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

    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:eee:hepoli:v:125:y:2021:i:8:p:1092-1099. 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: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

    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.