Determinants of Access to Physician Services in Italy: A Latent Class Seemingly Unrelated Probit Approach

Vincenzo Atella, Francesco Brindisi (), Partha Deb and Furio Rosati
Additional contact information
Francesco Brindisi: Columbia University - Department of Economics

CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS

Abstract: We examine access to general practitioners, public and private specialists in Italy. We develop a novel model using finite mixtures of probit models that provides a rich and flexible functional form. The mixed distribution is flexible and can accommodate non-normality of response probabilities. The empirical analysis shows that patient behavior can be clustered in two latent classes, and that it changes according to the kind of physician service demanded and the latent class to which the individual belongs. We find that income strongly influences the mix of services. Richer individuals are less likely to seek care from GPs and more likely to seek care from specialists, and especially private specialists. Health status and societal vulnerability are the most important indicators of class membership

Keywords: Health Care Demand; Latent Class Models; Probit; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23
Date: 2003-09-26
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ceistorvergata.it/RePEc/rpaper/No-36-Atella,Brindisi,Deb,Rosati.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Determinants of access to physician services in Italy: a latent class seemingly unrelated probit approach (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:36

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma
https://ceistorvergata.it

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Barbara Piazzi ().