The Impact of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising on Outpatient Care Utilization / Matthew D. Eisenberg, Brendan Rabideau, Abby E. Alpert, Rosemary J. Avery, Jeff Niederdeppe, Neeraj Sood.

By:

Eisenberg, Matthew D

Contributor(s):

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w30791.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

Other classification:

Online resources:

Available additional physical forms:

Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers

Abstract: There is much debate about the effects of pharmaceutical direct to consumer advertising (DTCA) on health care use. In this paper, we inform this debate by examining the effects of DTCA on office visits, as well as treatment courses resulting from those visits, for five common chronic conditions (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, depression, and osteoporosis). In particular, we examine whether office visits result in use of drug therapy and/or continued office visits over time. We test these questions by combining data on pharmaceutical advertising from Nielsen with claims data from 40 large national employers, covering 18 million person-years. We analyze a non-elderly population by exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in advertising exposure across areas due to the implementation of Medicare prescription drug coverage which led to larger increases in advertising in areas with high elderly share of population compared to low elderly share areas. We find that advertising increases the number of office visits for the non-elderly for the advertised condition. We also find substantial spillovers -- a large share of the increased office visits from advertising are associated with use of non-advertised generic drugs or do not result in use of any drugs. Finally, we find that the increase in office visits due to DTCA is associated with continued engagement with a physician through multiple consecutive follow up visits over time.

Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w30791 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

Total holds: 0

Collection: Colección NBER Close shelf browser (Hides shelf browser)

Previous	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	Next
Previous	nber w30789 Women's Empowerment and the Intrinsic Demand for Agency: Experimental Evidence from Nigeria /	nber w3079 Bank Monitoring and Investment: Evidence from the Changing Structure of Japanese Corporate Banking Relationships /	nber w30790 The Insurance Implications of Government Student Loan Repayment Schemes /	nber w30791 The Impact of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising on Outpatient Care Utilization /	nber w30792 Domestic Violence and the Mental Health and Well-being of Victims and Their Children /	nber w30793 Risk Management and the Autonomy of Labor /	nber w30794 Liquid Democracy. Two Experiments on Delegation in Voting /	Next

December 2022.

There is much debate about the effects of pharmaceutical direct to consumer advertising (DTCA) on health care use. In this paper, we inform this debate by examining the effects of DTCA on office visits, as well as treatment courses resulting from those visits, for five common chronic conditions (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, depression, and osteoporosis). In particular, we examine whether office visits result in use of drug therapy and/or continued office visits over time. We test these questions by combining data on pharmaceutical advertising from Nielsen with claims data from 40 large national employers, covering 18 million person-years. We analyze a non-elderly population by exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in advertising exposure across areas due to the implementation of Medicare prescription drug coverage which led to larger increases in advertising in areas with high elderly share of population compared to low elderly share areas. We find that advertising increases the number of office visits for the non-elderly for the advertised condition. We also find substantial spillovers -- a large share of the increased office visits from advertising are associated with use of non-advertised generic drugs or do not result in use of any drugs. Finally, we find that the increase in office visits due to DTCA is associated with continued engagement with a physician through multiple consecutive follow up visits over time.