Health Information and the Demand for Preventive Care Among the Elderly in Taiwan

Abstract:     
This paper uses a direct measure of information to empirically investigate the determinants of consumer health information and the linkage of the information to demand for preventive care. In our analysis, two equations are estimated: 1) health information and 2) demand for preventive care, which includes health information as an endogenous explanatory variable. Overall, the results show that more and better health information increases the probability that the elderly will use preventive care. This result, in combination with the finding that health information is not uniform among the elderly, suggests that poor information can become an access barrier to preventive care.

JEL Classification: I12, J14, N35

Accepted Paper Series