IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/3301.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Which doctor? Combining vignettes and item response to measure doctor quality

Author

Listed:
  • Das, Jishnu
  • Hammer, Jeffrey

Abstract

The authors develop a method in which vignettes-a battery of questions for hypothetical cases-are evaluated with item response theory to create a metric for doctor quality. The method allows a simultaneous estimation of quality and validation of the test instrument that can be used for further refinements. The authors apply the method to a sample of medical practitioners in Delhi, India. The method gives plausible results, rationalizes different perceptions of quality in the public and private sectors, and pinpoints several serious problems with health care delivery in urban India. The findings confirm, for instance, that the quality of private providers located in poorer areas of the city is significantly lower than those in richer neighborhoods. Surprisingly, similar results hold for providers in the public sector, with important implications for inequities in the availability of health care.

Suggested Citation

  • Das, Jishnu & Hammer, Jeffrey, 2004. "Which doctor? Combining vignettes and item response to measure doctor quality," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3301, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2004/07/23/000112742_20040723160111/Rendered/PDF/wps3301.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. Bock & Murray Aitkin, 1981. "Marginal maximum likelihood estimation of item parameters: Application of an EM algorithm," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 46(4), pages 443-459, December.
    2. Paul Collier & Stefan Dercon & John Mackinnon, 2002. "Density versus Quality in Health Care Provision: Using Household Data to Make Budgetary Choices in Ethiopia," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 16(3), pages 425-448, December.
    3. Das, Jishnu & Hammer, Jeffrey, 2007. "Money for nothing: The dire straits of medical practice in Delhi, India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 1-36, May.
    4. Foster, Andrew D, 1995. "Prices, Credit Markets and Child Growth in Low-Income Rural Areas," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(430), pages 551-570, May.
    5. Das, Jishnu & Sanchez-Paramo, Carolina, 2003. "Short but not sweet - new evidence on short duration morbidities from India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2971, The World Bank.
    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. Xu, Guo, 2013. "Development through Empowerment: Delivering Effective Public Services – a Literature Review," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 382, Asian Development Bank.
    2. Godlonton, Susan & Okeke, Edward N., 2016. "Does a ban on informal health providers save lives? Evidence from Malawi," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 112-132.
    3. Das, Jishnu & Hammer, Jeffrey & Sánchez-Paramo, Carolina, 2012. "The impact of recall periods on reported morbidity and health seeking behavior," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 76-88.
    4. Leonard, Kenneth L. & Masatu, Melkiory C., 2008. "Professionalism, Latent Professionalism and Organizational Demands for Health Care Quality in a Developing Country," Working Papers 42883, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    5. Das, Jishnu & Hammer, Jeffrey, 2004. "Strained mercy : The quality of medical care in Delhi," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3228, The World Bank.
    6. World Bank, 2007. "India - Rural governments and Service Delivery : Volume 2. Note," World Bank Other Operational Studies 8008, The World Bank.
    7. Adelman, Sarah W. & Essam, Timothy M. & Leonard, Kenneth L., 2008. "Idle Chatter or Learning? Evidence from Rural Tanzania of Social Learning about Clinicians and the Health System," Working Papers 42884, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    8. Leonard, Kenneth L., 2009. "The cost of imperfect agency in health care: Evidence from rural Cameroun," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 282-291, March.
    9. World Bank, 2007. "India - Rural Governments and Service Delivery : Volume 3. Main Report," World Bank Other Operational Studies 8009, The World Bank.
    10. Bold, Tessa & Gauthier, Bernard & Svensson, Jakob & Wane, Waly, 2010. "Delivering service indicators in education and health in Africa : a proposal," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5327, The World Bank.
    11. Leonard, Kenneth L. & Masatu, Melkiory C., 2005. "The use of direct clinician observation and vignettes for health services quality evaluation in developing countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(9), pages 1944-1951, November.
    12. Heather Klemick & Kenneth L. Leonard & Melkiory C. Masatu, 2007. "Defining Access to Health Care: Evidence on the Importance of Quality and Distance in Rural Tanzania," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(2), pages 347-358.
    13. Alderman, Harold & Das, Jishnu & Rao, Vijayendra, 2013. "Conducting ethical economic research: complications from the field," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6446, The World Bank.
    14. Kjell Hausken & Mthuli Ncube, 2013. "Working Paper 172 - Political Economy of Service Delivery: Monitoring versus Contestation," Working Paper Series 468, African Development Bank.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:3301. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Roula I. Yazigi). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.