The Effect of Education on Medical Technology Adoption: Are the More Educated More Likely to Use New Drugs / Adriana Lleras-Muney, Frank R. Lichtenberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lleras-Muney, Adriana.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lichtenberg, Frank R.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w9185.

NBER working paper series no. w9185

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

The Effect of Education on Medical Technology Adoption

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2002.

Summary:

There is a large body of work that documents a strong, positive correlation between education and measures of health, but little is known about the mechanisms by which education might affect health. One possibility is that more educated individuals are more likely to adopt new medical technologies. We investigate this theory by asking whether more educated people are more likely to use newer drugs, while controlling for other individual characteristics, such as income and insurance status. Using the 1997 MEPS, we find that more highly educated people are more likely to use drugs more recently approved by the FDA. We find that education only matters for individuals who repeatedly purchase drugs for a given condition, suggesting that the more educated are better able to learn from experience.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2002.