The War on Poverty's Experiment in Public Medicine: Community Health Centers and the Mortality of Older Americans / Martha J. Bailey, Andrew Goodman-Bacon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bailey, Martha J.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Goodman-Bacon, Andrew.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w20653.

NBER working paper series no. w20653

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

War on Poverty's Experiment in Public Medicine

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.

Summary:

This paper uses the rollout of the first Community Health Centers (CHCs) to study the longer-term health effects of increasing access to primary care. Within ten years, CHCs are associated with a reduction in age-adjusted mortality rates of 2 percent among those 50 and older. The implied 7 to 13 percent decrease in one-year mortality risk among beneficiaries amounts to 20 to 40 percent of the 1966 poor/non-poor mortality gap for this age group. Large effects for those 65 and older suggest that increased access to primary care has longer-term benefits, even for populations with near universal health insurance.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2014.