The effect of information in the utilization of preventive health‐care strategies: An application to breast cancer

This paper investigates the net benefit of mammography. A theoretical expected utility (EU) model shows that increases in breast cancer risk, decreases in false‐negative and false‐positive rates, decreases in cost and increases/decreases in quality of life with early/late‐stage breast cancer increase the net benefit of mammography. The theoretical findings are tested in an empirical analysis using Canadian data. The empirical results are broadly consistent with the EU hypothesis. Results suggest that women at higher risk are more likely to obtain a mammogram. In particular, individuals are significantly more likely to have had a time‐appropriate mammogram if the mother's cause of death was breast cancer, and if the sister had breast cancer. The results also show that older age (related to higher risk and more accurate mammograms) increases mammography use, and that decreases in time and opportunity costs, and better health behaviours generally have the same effect. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.