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," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 16(3), pages 425-448, December.
    3. Das, J. & Dercon, S. & Habyarimana, J. & Krishnan, P., 2004. "‘When Can School Inputs Improve Test Scores?’," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0437, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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. Barbara McPake & Anthony Scott & Ijeoma Edoka, 2014. "Analyzing Markets for Health Workers : Insights from Labor and Health Economics," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 18780, December.
    3. Asian Development Bank (ADB), 2013. "Empowerment and Public Service Delivery in Developing Asia and the Pacific," ADB Reports RPT135565-3, Asian Development Bank (ADB), revised 15 May 2013.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. World Bank, 2007. "India - Rural Governments and Service Delivery : Volume 3. Main Report," World Bank Publications - Reports 8009, The World Bank Group.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Kjell Hausken & Mthuli Ncube, 2013. "Working Paper 172 - Political Economy of Service Delivery: Monitoring versus Contestation," Working Paper Series 468, African Development Bank.
    11. 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.
    12. Das, Jishnu & Hammer, Jeffrey, 2004. "Strained mercy : The quality of medical care in Delhi," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3228, The World Bank.
    13. World Bank, 2007. "India - Rural governments and Service Delivery : Volume 2. Note," World Bank Publications - Reports 8008, The World Bank Group.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Eduardo Fe & Timothy Powell‐Jackson & Winnie Yip, 2017. "Doctor Competence and the Demand for Healthcare: Evidence from Rural China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(10), pages 1177-1190, October.
    17. Alderman, Harold & Das, Jishnu & Rao, Vijayendra, 2013. "Conducting ethical economic research: complications from the field," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6446, The World Bank.

    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. Das, Jishnu & Hammer, Jeffrey, 2005. "Which doctor? Combining vignettes and item response to measure clinical competence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 348-383, December.
    2. Das, Jishnu & Hammer, Jeffrey, 2004. "Strained mercy : The quality of medical care in Delhi," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3228, The World Bank.
    3. Jishnu Das & Stefan Dercon & James Habyarimana & Pramila Krishnan, 2007. "Teacher Shocks and Student Learning: Evidence from Zambia," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(4).
    4. 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.
    5. Pfeiffer, Friedhelm & Reuß, Karsten, 2008. "Age-dependent skill formation and returns to education," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 631-646, August.
    6. Duflo, Esther & Glennerster, Rachel & Kremer, Michael, 2008. "Using Randomization in Development Economics Research: A Toolkit," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 61, pages 3895-3962, Elsevier.
    7. Chris Elbers & Jan Willem Gunning, 2009. "Evaluation of Development Policy: Treatment versus Program Effects," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-073/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    8. 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.
    9. Swati Saini & Meeta Keswani Mehra, "undated". "Quality of Schooling: Child Quantity-Quality Tradeoff, Technological Progress and Economic Growth," Centre for International Trade and Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Discussion Papers 18-06, Centre for International Trade and Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
    10. Nathalie Francken, 2009. "Reducing Corruption in Public Education Programs in Africa:Instruments and Capture in Madagascar," LICOS Discussion Papers 24009, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    11. Sharon Bernhardt, 2006. "Participation in a School Incentive Programme in Karnataka," Working Papers id:319, eSocialSciences.
    12. Alejandro Esteller & Albert Solé, 2005. "Does decentralization improve the efficiency in the allocation of public investment? Evidence from Spain," Working Papers 2005/5, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    13. Glewwe, Paul & Kremer, Michael, 2006. "Schools, Teachers, and Education Outcomes in Developing Countries," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 16, pages 945-1017, Elsevier.
    14. Chris Elbers & Jan Willem Gunning, 2014. "Evaluation of Development Programs: Randomized Controlled Trials or Regressions?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 28(3), pages 432-445.
    15. Das, J. & Dercon, S. & Habyarimana, J. & Krishnan, P., 2004. "‘When Can School Inputs Improve Test Scores?’," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0437, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    16. Alejandro Esteller & Albert Solé, 2005. "Does decentralization improve the efficiency in the allocation of public investment? Evidence from Spain," Working Papers 2005/5, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    17. Masino, Serena & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2016. "What works to improve the quality of student learning in developing countries?," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 53-65.
    18. Datar, Ashlesha & Mason, Bryce, 2008. "Do reductions in class size "crowd out" parental investment in education?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 712-723, December.
    19. MTIRAOUI, Abderraouf, 2016. "Corruption, Capital humain et Croissance économique dans la région OCDE: Essai empirique [Corruption, Human Capital and Economic Growth in the OECD area: Empirical Test]," MPRA Paper 68996, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. David K. Evans & Anna Popova, 2016. "What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 31(2), pages 242-270.

    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.

    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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.