The War on Poverty's Experiment in Public Medicine: Community Health Centers and the Mortality of Older Americans

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bailey, Martha J.; Goodman-Bacon, Andrew
• 署名单位: University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20120070
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 1067-1104
• 关键词: PRIMARY-CARE; infant-mortality; RURAL-COMMUNITY; DIABETES CARE; IMPACT; QUALITY; rates; hypertension; eligibility; insurance

摘要

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.