Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Improved Public Primary Healthcare and Informal Provider Responses

Princeton University, Princeton NJ

Investigators

Abstract

Understanding the response of those not directly affected by policy changes is a central part of economic science. This award funds a research on how informal providers respond to major public health care reforms. The research uses modern research methods to study how other suppliers respond to changes in public health policies with particular focus on primary health care. Particularly, the research focuses on how the policy change affects the quality and quantity of services provided by informal healthcare providers. This allows researchers to measure the total direct and indirect effects of the policy changes on both suppliers and consumers of health care, especially those with low incomes who are more likely to use informal health care services. The research will use surveys to collect rich data on patient, provider, and households for the analyses. The focus of the research will be on the mechanisms through which the policy changes affect providers that are not directly affected by the policy change. The results of this research project can provide important inputs into policies that improve access to better healthcare for low income people, hence improve their health. The research results are applicable to other parts of the world, hence establish the US as the global leader in health care reform. This research project will use survey data to estimate a structural model of demand and informal provider behavior to assess the direct and indirect welfare effects of improved public healthcare provision. The project makes three contributions to the literature. First, it exploits the opportunity to collect an extensive set of survey data before and after a large public health reform to analyze the effects of improved public healthcare on patient outcomes in a low income environment. Second, the project constructs a structural model of informal provider behavior that accounts for price and quality decisions. Third, it uses a novel combination of standardized patients and provider and household data to identify the key parameters of the model. Taken together, this framework allows the researchers to examine the general equilibrium effects of improved public primary healthcare and inform the design and evaluation of future public health reforms. The research results are applicable to other parts of the world, hence establish the US as the global leader in health care reform. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.