ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF MORTALITY

本研究旨在更好地了解经济因素的作用 在解释死亡率模式，特别是在低收入人群中。我们 重点是健康保险制度的作用，更具体地说，如何 健康保险覆盖范围的巨大变化可能会影响 mortality.为了协同地开始建立一个经验的 因此，我们建议分析实际大的因果影响， 在不同的环境下进行保险扩张。一组分析将检查 实施医疗保险和医疗补助计划的死亡率影响 美国在1960年代的计划， 令人惊讶的是，研究很少。一组平行的分析将建立在以前的基础上， 审查2000年期间哥斯达黎加保险覆盖面大幅度扩大的工作 70年代该项目还包括一个方法的影响调查 分析区域汇总死亡率数据的常见做法 而不是个人层面的微观数据。该项目预计将产生 重要的新信息，了解健康保险的影响， 死亡率模式本身，并解释社会经济差异， 健康这些知识不仅对这两个国家很重要， 许多其他国家也在讨论大规模的医疗改革， 保险制度。

DESCRIPTION: This study seeks to better understand the role of economic factors in explaining mortality patterns, particularly in low-income populations. Our focus is on the role of the health insurance system, and more specifically, how large changes in the health insurance coverage of a population might influence mortality. In order to synergistically begin to build a body of empirical regularities, we propose to analyze the causal effects of actual large insurance expansions in different settings. One set of analyses will examine the mortality effects of the implementation of the Medicare and Medicaid programs in the United States during the 1960's, which have received surprisingly little study. A parallel set of analyses will build on previous work examining a large expansion in insurance coverage in Costa Rica during the 1970's. The project also includes a methodological investigation of the effects of the common practice of analyzing regionally aggregated mortality data instead of individual-level micro data. This project is expected to yield important new information in understanding the effect of health insurance on mortality patterns themselves, and on explaining socioeconomic differences in health. This knowledge is important not only for these two countries, but for many other countries as well as they debate large-scale reforms of their health insurance systems.