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Trust on doctor, social capital and medical care use of the elderly

The European Journal of Health Economics volume 12, pages 175–188 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

Using data from a survey sample of people 65 years of age and older living in Seoul and Chuncheon, Korea, this paper assesses whether the level of social capital affects elderly individuals’ use of medical care. As an econometric model, Heckman’s Sample Selection model and the 2SLS method were used to control the endogeneity problem of patient’s trust on doctors. The results of our estimations indicate that the level of social capital exerts a positive effect on elderly individuals’ use of medical care indirectly, via its positive effect on the level of trust in doctors.

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Notes

  1. We apply the exchange rate of 1200 Korean Won with $1.

  2. The name of variable representing the predicted value of trust is TRUST_HAT.

  3. Actually, depending on individual health status, the effect of trust on doctor on medical care use might be different. Hence, in order to confirm the estimation result above, we divided the sample depending on the respondent’s subjectively evaluated health status and investigated the effect using same estimation model. The effect was significant irrespective of respondent’s subjectively evaluated health status. Furthermore, the magnitude of the effect was largest on the case where the respondent’s subjectively evaluated health status was poor and was smallest on the case where the respondent’s subjectively evaluated health status was excellent. Therefore, the estimation result above might be strengthened. The estimation results are available upon request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food and Resource Economics, College of Life Science, Korea University, Seoul, Korea

    Jae-Young Lim & Yeon-Hee Hwang

  2. Division of Economics and International Trade, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, Korea

    Hyun-Hoon Lee

Authors
  1. Jae-Young Lim
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  2. Hyun-Hoon Lee
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Correspondence to Jae-Young Lim.

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Lim, JY., Lee, HH. & Hwang, YH. Trust on doctor, social capital and medical care use of the elderly. Eur J Health Econ 12, 175–188 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-010-0288-5

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Keywords

  • Social capital
  • Trust on doctor
  • Use of medical care of the elderly

JEL Classification

  • I10
  • I11