【主讲】Preety Srivastava (School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University)
【主题】Oral health, dental insurance and the demand for dental care in Australia
【时间】2013年12月5日 (周四) 15：30-17：00
【地点】上海财经大学经济学院楼710室
【语言】英文
【摘要】This study uses data from the 2004-10 Australian National Survey of Adult Oral Health (NSAOH) to investigate the inter-relationships across dental health, private dental insurance and dental service utilisation. Our findings indicate a positive effect of dental health and a negative effect of health risk behaviours on insurance purchase, and therefore the absence of adverse selection. In other words, individuals with better dental health and healthier risk behaviours are the ones most likely to purchase insurance. These results imply that an important element in the decision to purchase insurance is risk aversion, with the more risk averse adopting less risky behaviours and taking out private insurance. With regard to dental service utilisation, we find that insurance significantly increases demand for dental services but we observe a negative relationship between oral health and visit to the dentist. While such effects have been interpreted as moral hazard and advantageous selection in the literature, it is also consistent with the idea that more risk-averse individuals purchase preventive services from dentists through routine check-ups and health maintenance.
Our findings confirm that affordability is a major barrier to visiting the dentist for oral health maintenance and treatment. The predicted average percentage increase in visits to the dentist associated with the price reduction from having insurance is 56 percentage points. For those who do not currently have insurance the predicted effect of insurance on visits is likely to be smaller. Our results suggest that if those who currently do not have private insurance were to be covered under the same circumstances as those who do, they would increase their probability of visiting the dentist from 43% to 66%. We also find evidence of social inequality between the rich and the poor in terms of health outcomes, dental insurance participation and use of services; those who do not currently have insurance tend to have lower income and worse oral health status and are less educated. Reducing the price of dental care by providing some form of insurance coverage would increase dental visits in those whose oral health is most affected by under-treatment.
