Document Detail


Do expert patients get better treatment than others? Agency discrimination and statistical discrimination in obstetrics.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  21095034     Owner:  NLM     Status:  In-Data-Review    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
We address models that can explain why expert patients (obstetricians, midwives and doctors) are treated better than non-experts (mainly non-medical training). Models of statistical discrimination show that benevolent doctors treat expert patients better, since experts are better at communicating with the doctor. Agency theory suggests that doctors have an incentive to limit hospital costs by distorting information to non-expert patients, but not to expert patients. The hypotheses were tested on a large set of data, which contained information about the highest education of the parents, and detailed medical information about all births in Norway during the period 1967-2005 (Medical Birth Registry). The empirical analyses show that expert parents have a higher rate of Caesarean section than non-expert parents. The educational disparities were considerable 40 years ago, but have become markedly less over time. The analyses provide support for statistical discrimination theory, though agency theory cannot be totally excluded.
Authors:
Jostein Grytten; Irene Skau; Rune Sørensen
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article     Date:  2010-10-16
Journal Detail:
Title:  Journal of health economics     Volume:  30     ISSN:  1879-1646     ISO Abbreviation:  J Health Econ     Publication Date:  2011 Jan 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2011-02-21     Completed Date:  -     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  8410622     Medline TA:  J Health Econ     Country:  Netherlands    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  163-80     Citation Subset:  H    
Copyright Information:
Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Affiliation:
University of Oslo, Norway; Akershus University Hospital, Norway.
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