IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/amjhec/v3y2017i1p76-107.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health Spillovers among Hospital Patients: Evidence from Roommate Assignments

Author

Listed:
  • Olga Yakusheva

    (School of Nursing and School of Public Health, Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, University of Michigan)

Abstract

This study examines health spillovers among hospital patients using a natural experiment of conditionally random hospital roommate assignments and electronic medical records data for a sample of 3,793 patients and their roommates. The study finds that positive health spillover effects may play an important role in reducing the amount of care the patient requires during hospitalization, shortening length of hospital stay, and lowering hospitalization cost, with little evidence of negative health effects for most patients. Mechanisms of roommate effects and implications for health-care delivery and policy are also considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Olga Yakusheva, 2017. "Health Spillovers among Hospital Patients: Evidence from Roommate Assignments," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 3(1), pages 76-107, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:amjhec:v:3:y:2017:i:1:p:76-107
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/AJHE_a_00068
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    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. Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & Michael Kremer, 2011. "Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1739-1774, August.
    2. Scott E. Carrell & Bruce I. Sacerdote & James E. West, 2013. "From Natural Variation to Optimal Policy? The Importance of Endogenous Peer Group Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(3), pages 855-882, May.
    3. Asphjell, Magne K. & Hensvik, Lena & Nilsson, J. Peter, 2013. "Businesses, Buddies, and Babies: Fertility and Social Interactions at Work," Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies 2013:8, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    4. Carrell, Scott E. & Hoekstra, Mark & West, James E., 2011. "Is poor fitness contagious?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 657-663.
    5. Fowler, J.H. & Christakis, N.A., 2008. "Estimating peer effects on health in social networks: A response to Cohen-Cole and Fletcher; and Trogdon, Nonnemaker, and Pais," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1400-1405, September.
    6. Olga Yakusheva & Kandice A. Kapinos & Daniel Eisenberg, 2014. "Estimating Heterogeneous and Hierarchical Peer Effects on Body Weight Using Roommate Assignments as a Natural Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(1), pages 234-261.
    7. Case, A.C. & Katz, L.F., 1991. "The Company You Keep: The Effects Of Family And Neighborhood On Disadvantaged Younths," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1555, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    8. Michael A. Boozer & Stephen E. Cacciola, 2001. "Inside the 'Black Box' of Project STAR: Estimation of Peer Effects Using Experimental Data," Working Papers 832, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    9. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    10. Eisenberg, Daniel & Downs, Marilyn F. & Golberstein, Ezra, 2012. "Effects of contact with treatment users on mental illness stigma: Evidence from university roommate assignments," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(6), pages 1122-1127.
    11. Jonathan Guryan & Kory Kroft & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2009. "Peer Effects in the Workplace: Evidence from Random Groupings in Professional Golf Tournaments," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 34-68, October.
    12. Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roommates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 681-704.
    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. 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.
    15. Boozer, Michael A. & Cacciola, Stephen E., 2001. "Inside the 'Black Box' of Project Star: Estimation of Peer Effects Using Experimental Data," Center Discussion Papers 28524, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    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. Angrist, Joshua D., 2014. "The perils of peer effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 98-108.
    2. Alexandra de Gendre & Nicolás Salamanca, 2020. "On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2020n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    3. 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..
    4. Antecol, Heather & Eren, Ozkan & Ozbeklik, Serkan, 2013. "Peer Effects in Disadvantaged Primary Schools: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 7694, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Fischer, Stefanie, 2017. "The downside of good peers: How classroom composition differentially affects men's and women's STEM persistence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 211-226.
    6. Berlinski, Samuel & Busso, Matias & Giannola, Michele, 2023. "Helping struggling students and benefiting all: Peer effects in primary education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    7. Vardardottir, Arna, 2013. "Peer effects and academic achievement: a regression discontinuity approach," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 108-121.
    8. Angela Granger-Serrano & Alexander Villarraga-Orjuela, 2021. "Peer Effects on First-Year University Students’ Results: The Role of Classmates’ Academic Performance and Socioeconomic Status," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(23), pages 1-26, December.
    9. Kang, Changhui, 2007. "Classroom peer effects and academic achievement: Quasi-randomization evidence from South Korea," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 458-495, May.
    10. Antonia Grohmann & Sahra Sakha, 2015. "The Effect of Peer Observation on Consumption Choices: Experimental Evidence," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1525, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Fertig, Michael, 2003. "Educational Production, Endogenous Peer Group Formation and Class Composition – Evidence from the PISA 2000 Study," IZA Discussion Papers 714, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Chih‐Sheng Hsieh & Hans van Kippersluis, 2018. "Smoking initiation: Peers and personality," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 825-863, July.
    13. Patrick Bayer & Randi Hjalmarsson & David Pozen, 2009. "Building Criminal Capital behind Bars: Peer Effects in Juvenile Corrections," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 105-147.
    14. Kuersteiner, Guido M. & Prucha, Ingmar R. & Zeng, Ying, 2023. "Efficient peer effects estimators with group effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2155-2194.
    15. Gioia De Melo, 2011. "Peer effects identified through social networks. Evidence from Uruguayan schools," Department of Economics University of Siena 627, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    16. Stephen Gibbons & Shqiponja Telhaj, 2016. "Peer Effects: Evidence from Secondary School Transition in England," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(4), pages 548-575, August.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Bin Huang & Rong Zhu, 2020. "Peer effects of low-ability students in the classroom: evidence from China’s middle schools," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1343-1380, October.
    20. Ezra Golberstein & Daniel Eisenberg & Marilyn F. Downs, 2016. "Spillover Effects in Health Service Use: Evidence From Mental Health Care Using First‐Year College Housing Assignments," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 40-55, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    peer effects; hospital roommates; natural experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

    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:tpr:amjhec:v:3:y:2017:i:1:p:76-107. 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: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.