Across the globe, the most common means of supporting older disabled adults in their homes is through “informal care.” An informal carer is a family member or friend, including children or adults, who help another person because of their illness, frailty, or disability. There is a rich economics literature on the direct benefits of caregiving, including allowing the care recipient to remain at home for longer than if there was no informal care provided. There is also a growing literature outlining the associated costs of care provision. Although informal care helps individuals with disabilities to remain at home and is rewarding to many carers, there are often negative effects such as depression and lost labor market earnings that may offset some of these rewards. Economists have taken several approaches to quantify the net societal benefit of informal care that consider the degree of choice in caregiving decisions and all direct and indirect benefits and costs of informal care.
Article
The Economics of Informal Care
Courtney Van Houtven, Fiona Carmichael, Josephine Jacobs, and Peter C. Coyte
Article
The Economics of Long-Term Care
Norman Bannenberg, Martin Karlsson, and Hendrik Schmitz
Long-term care (LTC) is arguably the sector of the economy that is most sensitive to population aging: its recipients are typically older than 80 years whereas most care providers are of working age. Thus, a number of ongoing societal trends interact in the determination of market outcomes in the LTC sector: trends in longevity and healthy life expectancy interact with changing family structures and norms in shaping the need for services. The supply side is additionally affected by changes in employment patterns, in particular regarding the transition into retirement, as well as by cross-regional imbalances in demographic and economic conditions. The economic literature on long-term care considers many of these issues, aims at understanding this steadily growing sector, and at guiding policy. Key economic studies on long-term care address determinants of the demand for long-term care, like disability and socio-economic status; the two most important providers: informal family caregivers and nursing homes; and the financing and funding of LTC.
Article
The Economics of Malaria Prevention
Bénédicte Apouey, Gabriel Picone, and Joshua Wilde
Malaria is a potentially life-threatening disease transmitted through the bites of female anopheline mosquitos infected with protozoan parasites. Malaria remains one of the major causes of mortality by infectious disease: in 2015, there were an estimated 212 million cases and 429,000 deaths globally, according to the 2016 World Malaria Report. Children under 5 years in sub-Saharan Africa bear the greatest burden of the disease worldwide.
However, most of these cases could be prevented or treated. Several methods are highly effective in preventing malaria: in particular, sleeping under an insecticide-treated mosquito net (ITN), indoor residual spraying (IRS), and taking intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women (IPTp). Regarding treatment, artesiminin-based combination therapy (ACT) is recommended as first-line treatment in many countries.
Compared with other actions, malaria prevention behaviors have some specific features. In particular, they produce public health externalities. For example, bed net usage creates positive externalities since bed nets not only directly protect the user, but also reduce transmission probabilities through reduction in the number of disease hosts, and in the case of ITNs, reduction of the vector itself. In contrast, ACT uptake creates both positive externalities when individuals with malaria are treated, and negative externalities in the case of overtreatment that speeds up the spread of long-run parasite resistance. Moreover, ITNs, IPTp, and ACTs are experience goods (meaning individuals only ascertain their benefits upon usage), which implies that current preventive actions are linked to past preventive behaviors.
Malaria prevention and eradication produce unambiguous benefits across various domains: economic conditions, educational outcomes, survival, fertility, and health. However, despite the high private returns to prevention, the adoption of antimalarial products and behaviors remains relatively low in malaria-affected areas.
A variety of explanations have been proposed for low adoption rates, including financial constraints, high prices, and absence of information. While recent studies highlight that all of these factors play a role, the main barrier to adoption is probably financial constraints. This finding has implications regarding the appropriate pricing policy for these health products. In addition, there is a shortage of causally identified research on the effect of cultural and psychological barriers to the adoption of preventive behaviors. The literature which does exist is from a few randomized control trials of few individuals in very specific geographic and cultural contexts, and may not be generalizable. As a result, there are still ample opportunities for research on applying the insights of behavioral economics to malaria-preventive behavior in particular. Moreover, little research has been done on the supply side, such as whether free or heavily subsidized distribution of prevention technologies is fiscally sustainable; finding effective methods to solve logistical problems which lead to shortages and ineffective alternative treatments to fill the gap; or training sufficient healthcare workers to ensure smooth and effective delivery. Given these gaps in the literature, there are still multiple fruitful avenues for research which may have a first-order effect on reducing the prevalence of malaria in the developing world.
Article
The Economics of Smoking Prevention
Philip DeCicca, Donald S. Kenkel, Michael F. Lovenheim, and Erik Nesson
Smoking prevention has been a key component of health policy in developed nations for over half a century. Public policies to reduce the physical harm attributed to cigarette smoking, both externally and to the smoker, include cigarette taxation, smoking bans, and anti-smoking campaigns, among other publicly conceived strategies to reduce smoking initiation among the young and increase smoking cessation among current smokers. Despite the policy intensity of the past two decades, there remains debate regarding whether, and to what extent, the observed reductions in smoking are due to such policies. Indeed, while smoking rates in developed countries have fallen substantially over the past half century, it is difficult to separate secular trends toward greater investment in health from actual policy impacts. In other words, smoking rates might have declined in the absence of these anti-smoking policies, consistent with trends toward other healthy behaviors. These trends also may reflect longer-run responses to policies enacted many years ago, which also poses challenges for identification of causal policy effects. While smoking rates fell dramatically over this period, the gradient in smoking prevalence has become tilted toward lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals. That is, cigarette smoking exhibited a relatively flat SES gradient 50 years ago, but today that gradient is much steeper: relatively less-educated and lower-income individuals are many times more likely to be cigarette smokers than their more highly educated and higher-income counterparts. Over time, consumers also have become less price-responsive, which has rendered cigarette taxation a less effective policy tool with which to reduce smoking. The emergence of tax avoidance strategies such as casual cigarette smuggling (e.g., cross-tax border purchasing) and purchasing from tax-free outlets (e.g., Native reservations in Canada and the United States) have likely contributed to reduced price sensitivity. Such behaviors have been of particular interest in the last decade as cigarette taxation has roughly doubled cigarette prices in many developed nations, creating often large incentives to avoid taxation for those who continue to smoke. Perhaps due to the perception that traditional policy has been ineffective, recent anti-smoking policy has focused more on the direct regulation of cigarettes and smoking behavior. The main non-price-based policy has been the rise of smoke-free air laws, which restrict smoking behavior in workplaces, restaurants, and bars. These regulations can reduce smoking prevalence and exposure to secondhand smoke among nonsmokers. However, they may also shift the location of smoking in ways that increase secondhand smoke exposure, particularly among children. Other non-tax regulations focus on the packaging (e.g., the movement towards plain packaging), advertising, and product attributes of cigarettes (e.g., nicotine content, cigarette flavor, etc.), and most are attempts to reduce smoking by making it less desirable to the actual or potential smoker. Perhaps not surprisingly, research in the economics of smoking prevention has followed these policy developments, though strong interest remains in both the evaluation of price- and non-price policies as well as any offsetting responses among smokers that may undermine the effectiveness of these regulations. While the past two decades have provided fertile ground for research in the economics of smoking, we expect this to continue, as governments search for more innovative and effective ways to reduce smoking.
Article
Economic Studies on the Opioid Crisis: Costs, Causes, and Policy Responses
Johanna Catherine Maclean, Justine Mallatt, Christopher J. Ruhm, and Kosali Simon
The United States has experienced an unprecedented crisis related to the misuse of and addiction to opioids. As of 2018, 128 Americans die each day of an opioid overdose, and total economic costs associated with opioid misuse are estimated to be more than $500 billion annually. The crisis evolved in three phases, starting in the 1990s and continuing through 2010 with a massive increase in use of prescribed opioids associated with lax prescribing regulations and aggressive marketing efforts by the pharmaceutical industry. A second phase included tightening restrictions on prescribed opioids, reformulation of some commonly misused prescription medications, and a shift to heroin consumption over the period 2010 to 2013. Since 2013, the third phase of the crisis has included a movement toward synthetic opioids, especially fentanyl, and a continued tightening of opioid prescribing regulations, along with the growth of both harm reduction and addiction treatment access policies, including a possible 2021 relaxation of buprenorphine prescribing regulations.
Economic research, using innovative frameworks, causal methods, and rich data, has added to our understanding of the causes and consequences of the crisis. This body of research identifies intended and unintended impacts of policies designed to address the crisis. Although there is general agreement that the causes of the crisis include a combination of supply- and demand-side factors, and interactions between them, there is less consensus regarding the relative importance of each. Studies show that regulations can reduce opioid prescribing but may have less impact on root causes of the crisis and, in some cases, have spillover effects resulting in greater use of more harmful substances obtained in illicit markets, where regulation is less possible. There are effective opioid use disorder treatments available, but access, stigma, and cost hurdles have stifled utilization, resulting in a large degree of under-treatment in the United States.
How challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic may intersect with the opioid crisis is unclear. Emerging areas for future research include understanding how societal and health care systems disruptions affect opioid use, as well as which regulations and policies most effectively reduce potentially inappropriate prescription opioid use and illicit opioid sources without unintended negative consequences.
Article
Education and Social Mobility
Helena Holmlund and Martin Nybom
Family background is a strong determinant of an individual’s educational achievement and labor market success. Using an economics framework, intergenerational persistence in socioeconomic status can be explained by a variety of factors, including parental investment behavior, credit constraints, and the degree of inequality in society. Genetic transmission from parents to children may also play a role. In addition, the skill formation process is governed by dynamics between different stages of a child’s life, such as complementarities between early and late investments or between informal and formal education.
Education policy holds the promise of breaking the strong ties between family background and socioeconomic position by providing publicly accessible education for children of all backgrounds. However, the education system may also perpetuate social inequalities if well-off families are able to protect their children from downward mobility by, for example, moving to neighborhoods with high-quality schools and by providing networks that offer opportunities to succeed.
However, a growing number of studies show that educational interventions can have long-lasting effects on students’ outcomes, in particular for disadvantaged students, and that they can be cost-effective. For example, reducing class size, increasing general education spending, tutoring, and improving teacher quality are policy levers that are shown to be successful in this regard. Shifting from selective to comprehensive school systems is also a policy that enhances equality of opportunity. While the evidence on credit constraints and their role for access to higher education is evolving, but still mostly U.S. focused and largely inconclusive, it is a key domain for shaping social mobility given the life-changing impacts that a university degree can have.
Article
Effectiveness and Availability of Treatment for Substance Use Disorders
Dominic Hodgkin and Hilary S. Connery
Drug and alcohol use disorders, also called substance use disorders (SUD), are among the major health problems facing many countries, contributing a substantial burden in terms of mortality, morbidity, and economic impact. A considerable body of research is dedicated to reducing the social and individual burden of SUD.
One major focus of research has been the effectiveness of treatment for SUD, with studies examining both medication and behavioral treatments using randomized, controlled clinical trials. For opioid use disorder, there is a strong evidence base for medication treatment, particularly using agonist therapies (i.e., methadone and buprenorphine), but mixed evidence regarding the use of psychosocial interventions. For alcohol use disorder, there is evidence of modest effectiveness for two medications (acamprosate and naltrexone) and for various psychosocial treatments, especially for less severe alcohol use disorder syndromes. An important area for future research is how to make treatment more appealing to clients, given that client reluctance is an important contributor to the low utilization of effective treatments.
A second major focus of research has been the availability of medication treatments, building on existing theories of how innovations diffuse, and on the field of dissemination and implementation research. In the United States, this research identifies serious gaps in both the availability of SUD treatment programs and the availability of effective treatment within those programs. Key barriers include lack of on-site medical staff at many SUD treatment programs; restrictive policies of private insurers, states, and federal authorities; and widespread skepticism toward medication treatment among counseling staff and some administrators. Emerging research is promising for providing medication treatment in settings other than SUD treatment programs, such as community mental health centers, prisons, emergency departments, and homeless shelters.
There is still considerable room to make SUD treatment approaches more effective, more available, and—most importantly—more acceptable to clients.
Article
The Effect of Education on Health and Mortality: A Review of Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidence
Titus Galama, Adriana Lleras-Muney, and Hans van Kippersluis
Education is strongly associated with better health and longer lives. However, the extent to which education causes health and longevity is widely debated. We develop a human capital framework to structure the interpretation of the empirical evidence and review evidence on the causal effects of education on mortality and its two most common preventable causes: smoking and obesity. We focus attention on evidence from randomized controlled trials, twin studies, and quasi-experiments. There is no convincing evidence of an effect of education on obesity, and the effects on smoking are only apparent when schooling reforms affect individuals’ track or their peer group, but not when they simply increase the duration of schooling. An effect of education on mortality exists in some contexts but not in others and seems to depend on (i) gender, (ii) the labor market returns to education, (iii) the quality of education, and (iv) whether education affects the quality of individuals’ peers.
Article
The Effect of Government Policy on Pharmaceutical Drug Innovation
Ayman Chit and Paul Grootendorst
Drug companies are profit-maximizing entities, and profit is, by definition, revenue less cost. Here we review the impact of government policies that affect sales revenues earned on newly developed drugs and the impact of policies that affect the cost of drug development. The former policies include intellectual property rights, drug price controls, and the extension of public drug coverage to previously underinsured groups. The latter policies include regulations governing drug safety and efficacy, R&D tax credits, publicly funded basic research, and public funding for open drug discovery consortia.
The latter policy, public funding of research consortia that seek to better understand the cellular pathways through which new drugs can ameliorate disease, appears very promising. In particular, a better understanding of human pathophysiology may be able to address the high failure rate of drugs undergoing clinical testing. Policies that expand market size by extending drug insurance to previously underinsured groups also appear to be effective at increasing drug R&D. Expansions of pharmaceutical intellectual property rights seem to be less effective, given the countervailing monopsony power of large public drug plans.
Article
The Effect of Immigration on Education
Giorgio Brunello
Does a higher share of immigrants affect the school performance of both immigrants and natives? Do desegregation policies improve efficiency? The existing evidence suggests that a higher share of immigrants has a negative (and often sizable) effect on the school performance of immigrants and a negative but probably small effect on the performance of natives. When average school performance is considered, this asymmetry generates concave peer effects, a key condition for the efficiency of desegregating policies. The broad message from the empirical literature is that these policies are not only equitable, in that they provide better opportunities to individuals with relatively low parental background, but also efficient.
Article
The Effects of Parental Job Loss on Children’s Outcomes
Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela
Severe economic downturns are typically characterized by a high incidence of job losses. The available evidence suggests that job losers suffer short-run earning losses that persist in the long run, are more likely to remain unemployed, suffer negative health impacts, and experience an increased likelihood of divorce. Job losses have therefore the potential to generate spillover effects for other members of the household, including children. This comes about because most of the negative consequences of job loss have a direct effect on variables that enter both the production function of cognitive achievement and the health production function.
Workers who lose their jobs are likely different from those who remain employed in ways that are unobserved to the researcher and that might, in turn, affect child outcomes. Omitted variable bias poses a challenge to obtaining causal estimates of parental job loss. The way the literature has tried to approximate the ideal experiment has mainly depended on whether the child outcome under analysis could be observed both before and after the shock (i.e., both before and after parental job loss), normally relying on job losses coming from plant closures or downsizes and/or individual fixed effects. A survey of the literature shows that father’s job losses seem to have a detrimental impact on outcomes measuring children’s health and school performance. The impact of mother’s job losses on these same outcomes is mixed (including negative, null, and positive impacts). The impact on more long-term outcomes is less clear, with very mixed findings when it comes to the effect of parental job loss on college enrollment, and small impacts on earnings. In many studies, though, average effects mask important differences across subgroups: the negative impact of parental job loss seems to be mostly concentrated on disadvantaged households.
Article
The Effects of Prenatal Care on Birth Outcomes: Reconciling a Messy Literature
Hope Corman, Dhaval Dave, and Nancy E. Reichman
Prenatal care, one of the most frequently used forms of healthcare in the United States, involves a series of encounters during the gestational period, educates women about pregnancy, monitors existing medical conditions, tests for gestational health conditions, and refers expectant mothers to services such as support groups and social services. However, an increasingly methodologically rigorous literature suggests that the effects of prenatal care timing and quantity on birth outcomes, particularly low birthweight, are modest at the population level. A review and synthesis of the literature suggests that the questions typically being asked may be too narrow and that more attention should be paid to the characterization of infant health, characterization of the content and quality of prenatal care, potential heterogeneous effects, potential indirect effects on health behaviors that may benefit offspring, potential long-term effects, potential spillover effects (i.e., on mothers and their subsequent children), effects of preconceptional and lifetime care, and intergenerational effects.
Article
Equality of Opportunity in Health and Healthcare
Florence Jusot and Sandy Tubeuf
Recent developments in the analysis of inequality in health and healthcare have turned their interest into an explicit normative understanding of the sources of inequalities that calls upon the concept of equality of opportunity. According to this concept, some sources of inequality are more objectionable than others and could represent priorities for policies aiming to reduce inequality in healthcare use, access, or health status.
Equality of opportunity draws a distinction between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” sources of inequality. While legitimate sources of differences can be attributed to the consequences of individual effort (i.e. determinants within the individual’s control), illegitimate sources of differences are related to circumstances (i.e. determinants beyond the individual’s responsibility).
The study of inequality of opportunity is rooted in social justice research, and the last decade has seen a rapid growth in empirical work using this literature at the core of its approach in both developed and developing countries. Empirical research on inequality of opportunity in health and healthcare is mainly driven by data availability. Most studies in adult populations are based on data from European countries, especially from the UK, while studies analyzing inequalities of opportunity among children are usually based on data from low- or middle-income countries and focus on children under five years old.
Regarding the choice of circumstances, most studies have considered social background to be an illegitimate source of inequality in health and healthcare. Geographical dimensions have also been taken into account, but to a lesser extent, and more frequently in studies focusing on children or those based on data from countries outside Europe. Regarding effort variables or legitimate sources of health inequality, there is wide use of smoking-related variables.
Regardless of the population, health outcome, and circumstances considered, scholars have provided evidence of illegitimate inequality in health and healthcare. Studies on inequality of opportunity in healthcare are mainly found in children population; this emphasizes the need to tackle inequality as early as possible.
Article
Evaluation of Mental Health Interventions
Martin Knapp
Mental illnesses are highly prevalent and can have considerable, enduring consequences for individuals, families, communities, and economies. Despite these high prevalence rates, mental illnesses have not received as much public policy commitment or funding as might be expected. One result is that mental illness often goes unrecognized and untreated. The resultant costs are felt not only in healthcare systems, but across many other sectors, including housing, social care, criminal justice, welfare benefits, and employment.
This article sets out the basic principles of economic evaluation, with illustrations in this mental health context. It also discusses the main practical challenges when conducting and interpreting evidence from such evaluations.
Decisions about whether to spend resources on a treatment or prevention strategy are based on whether it is likely to be effective in avoiding, reducing, or curing symptoms, improving quality of life, or achieving other individual-level outcomes. The economic evaluation question is whether the outcomes achieved are sufficient to justify the cost that is incurred in delivering the intervention.
An economic evaluation has five elements: clarification of the question to be addressed; specification of the intervention to be evaluated and with what alternative it is being compared; the outcomes to be measured; the costs to be measured (including the cost of implementing the intervention and any savings that might accrue); and finally, how outcome and cost findings are to be blended to make a recommendation to the decision-maker. Sometimes, if an evaluation finds that one intervention has better outcomes but higher costs, then the evaluation should also how one (the outcomes) might be trade-off for the other (the costs).
The article illustrates how economic evaluations have been undertaken and employed to address a range of questions, from the very strategic issue to the more specific clinical question. The purpose of the study can, to some extent, determine the type of evaluation that is needed.
Examples of evaluations are given in a number of areas: perinatal maternal mental illness; parenting programs for conduct disorder; anti-bullying programs in schools; early intervention services for psychosis; individual placement and support; collaborative care for physical health problems; and suicide prevention. The challenges of economic evaluation are discussed, specifically in the mental health field.
Article
The Evolution of Mental Health Policy and Economics
Sherry Glied and Richard Frank
Mental health economics addresses problems that are common to all of health economics, but that occur with greater severity in this context. Several characteristics of mental health conditions—age of onset, chronicity, observability, and external effects—make them particularly economically challenging, and a range of policies have evolved to address these problems. The need for insurance—and for social insurance—to address mental health problems has grown. There is an expanding number of effective treatments available for mental health conditions, and these treatments can be relatively costly. The particular characteristics of mental health conditions exacerbate the usual problems of moral hazard, adverse selection, and agency. There is increased recognition, in both the policy and economics literatures, of the array of services and supports required to enable people with severe mental illnesses to function in society’s mainstream. The need for such non-medical services, generates economic problems of cross-system coordination and opportunism. Moreover, the impairments imposed by mental disorders have become more disruptive to the labor market because the nature of work is changing in a manner that creates special disadvantages to people with these conditions. New directions for mental health economics would address these effects.
Article
Explaining the Mathematics Gender Gap: The Role of Stereotypes
Pilar Cuevas Ruiz, Ismael Sanz, and Almudena Sevilla
Descriptive stereotypes such as “girls are not good at mathematics” or prescriptive stereotypes, that is, fixed views about women’s societal roles, can explain the persistent gender gap in mathematics. Stereotypes lower girls’ beliefs, expectations, and incentives to put forth effort, and can constrain girls’ choices in male-dominated high-paying careers that are math-intensive and that require strong math skills. This gap slows progress toward gender equality in the labor market and hinders productivity and economic growth.
Policy interventions to alleviate the negative impacts of descriptive stereotypes aim to prevent girls from internalizing socially constructed behaviors aligned with prevalent gender stereotypes regarding the innate mathematical abilities of boys and girls. Boosting girls’ confidence in their math skills includes introducing them to female role models, such as women math teachers, using gender-neutral language, and providing textbooks and other teaching materials that challenge gender stereotypes. A different set of policies focuses on altering the environment in which girls learn, rather than modifying their beliefs. By adjusting the testing methods (such as reducing the level of competition) or adapting the instructional approach to better align with the learning style of girls, it is possible to create an environment that enables more girls to achieve their maximum potential and to accurately assess their math abilities and interests, rather than simply their test-taking or classroom performance.
However, interventions that aim to modify the beliefs and attitudes of girls and women ex post, as well as those that seek to alter the environment, may not work in the long term because they reinforce preexisting stereotypes and operate within the constraints of those stereotypes. For instance, while modifying the testing environment may result in higher grades for girls, it may not necessarily alter the perception that girls are incapable of excelling in math. In some cases, these interventions may even have negative consequences. Encouraging girls to “lean in” and behave like boys, for example, can lead to unequal, unjust, and inefficient outcomes because the benefits (economic returns) of doing so are lower or even negative for girls in light of existing gender stereotypes.
One popular and affordable approach to combating gender stereotypes involves addressing (unconscious) biases among teachers, parents, and peers through initiatives such as unconscious bias training and self-reflection on biases. The underlying premise is that by increasing awareness of their own (unconscious) biases, individuals will engage their more conscious, non-gender-stereotypical thinking processes. However, such behavioral interventions can sometimes have unintended consequences and result in backlash, and their effectiveness may vary significantly depending on the context, so that their external validity is often called into question.
The recognition of the adaptable nature of both conscious and unconscious stereotypes has led to progress in economics, with the development of social learning and information-based theories. Interventions resulting from these models can effectively counteract prescriptive stereotypes that limit girls’ education to certain fields based on societal expectations of gender roles. However, prescriptive gender stereotypes are often based on biased beliefs about the innate abilities of girls and women. Overcoming deeply ingrained descriptive stereotypes about innate abilities of boys and girls is a fruitful avenue for future economics research and can help close the gender performance gap in mathematics.
Article
Famines, Hunger, and Later-Life Health
Gerard J. van den Berg and Maarten Lindeboom
Modern-day famines are caused by unusual impediments or interventions in society, effectively imposing severe market restrictions and preventing the free movement of people and goods. Long-run health effects of exposure to famine are commonly studied to obtain insights into the long-run effects of malnutrition at early ages. This line of research has faced major methodological and data challenges. Recent research in various disciplines, such as economics, epidemiology, and demography, has made great progress in dealing with these issues. Malnutrition around birth affects a range of later-life individual outcomes, including health, educational, and economic outcomes.
Article
Financial Protection Against Medical Expense
Owen O'Donnell
Financial protection is claimed to be an important objective of health policy. Yet there is a lack of clarity about what it is and no consensus on how to measure it. This impedes the design of efficient and equitable health financing. Arguably, the objective of financial protection is to shield nonmedical consumption from the cost of healthcare. The instruments are formal health insurance and public finances, as well as informal and self-insurance mechanisms that do not impair earnings potential. There are four main approaches to the measurement of financial protection: the extent of consumption smoothing over health shocks, the risk premium (willingness to pay in excess of a fair premium) to cover uninsured medical expenses, catastrophic healthcare payments, and impoverishing healthcare payments. The first of these does not restrict attention to medical expenses, which limits its relevance to health financing policy. The second rests on assumptions about risk preferences. No measure treats medical expenses that are financed through informal insurance and self-insurance instruments in an entirely satisfactory way. By ignoring these sources of imperfect insurance, the catastrophic payments measure overstates the impact of out-of-pocket medical expenses on living standards, while the impoverishment measure does not credibly identify poverty caused by them. It is better thought of as a correction to the measurement of poverty.
Article
Financial Strain and Health
Irina Grafova
One of the most fundamental results in health economics is that a greater socio-economic status is associated with better health outcomes. However, the experience of financial pressure and lack of resources transcends the notion of low income and poverty. Families of all income categories can experience financial pressure and lack of resources. This article reviews the literature examining the relationship between financial strain and various health outcomes. There are three main approaches to the measurement of financial strain found in the research literature, each one capturing a slightly different aspect: the family’s debt position, the availability of emergency funds, and inability to meet current financial obligations.
There are two main hypotheses explaining how financial strain may affect health. First, financial strain indicates a lower amount of financial resources available to individuals and families. This may have a dual impact on health. On the one hand, lower financial resources may lead to a decrease in consumption of substances such as tobacco that are harmful to health. On the other hand, lower financial resources may also negatively affect healthcare access, healthcare utilization, and adherence to treatment, with each contributing to a decline in health. Second, financial strain may produce greater uncertainty with regard to the availability of financial resources at present as well as in the future, thereby resulting in elevated stress, which may, in turn, result in poorer health outcomes. Examining the relationship between financial strain and health is complicated because it appears to be bidirectional. It is not only the case that financial strain may impact health but that health may impact financial strain.
The research literature consistently finds that financial strain has a detrimental impact on a variety of mental health outcomes. This relationship has been documented for a variety of financial strain indicators, including non-collateralized (unsecure) debt, mortgage debt, and the inability to meet current financial obligations. The research on the association between financial strain and health behavior outcomes is more ambiguous. As one example, there are mixed results concerning whether financial strain results in a higher likelihood of obesity. This research has considered various indicators of financial strain, including credit card debt and the inability to meet current financial obligations. It appears that both among adults and children there is no consistent evidence on the impact of financial strain on body weight. Similarly, the results on the impact of financial strain on alcohol use and substance abuse are mixed.
A number of significant questions regarding the relationship between financial strain and health remain unresolved. The majority of the existing studies focus on health outcomes among adults. There is a lack of understanding regarding how family exposure to financial strain can affect children. Additionally, very little is known about the implications of long-term exposure to financial strain. There are also some very important methodological challenges in this area of research related to establishing causality. Establishing causality and learning more about the implications of the exposure to financial strain could have important policy implications for a variety of safety net programs.
Article
Financing and Policy for Long-Term Care
Alexandrina Stoyanova and David Cantarero-Prieto
Long-term care (LTC) systems entitle frail and disabled people, who experience declines in physical and mental capacities, to quality care and support from an appropriately trained workforce and aim to preserve individual health and promote personal well-being for people of all ages. Myriad social factors pose significant challenges to LTC services and systems worldwide. Leading among these factors is the aging population—that is, the growing proportion of older people, the main recipients of LTC, in the population—and the implications not only for the health and social protection sectors, but almost all other segments of society. The number of elderly citizens has increased significantly in recent years in most countries and regions, and the pace of that growth is expected to accelerate in the forthcoming decades. The rapid demographic evolution has been accompanied by substantial social changes that have modified the traditional pattern of delivery LTC. Although families (and friends) still provide most of the help and care to relatives with functional limitations, changes in the population structure, such as weakened family ties, increased participation of women in the labor market, and withdrawal of early retirement policies, have resulted in a decrease in the provision of informal care. Thus, the growing demands for care, together with a lower potential supply of informal care, is likely to put pressure on the provision of formal care services in terms of both quantity and quality. Other related concerns include the sustainable financing of LTC services, which has declined significantly in recent years, and the pursuit of equity.
The current institutional background regarding LTC differs substantially across countries, but they all face similar challenges. Addressing these challenges requires a comprehensive approach that allows for the adoption of the “right” mix of policies between those aiming at informal care and those focusing on the provision and financing of formal LTC services.
