Latent Class Analysis of Demand for Medical Care Services. Abstract, ExecutiveSummary and Final Report

摘要

This project examines empirical strategies for modeling the demand for healthservices. The investigators use a research strategy that involves a systematic and detailed comparison of two approaches. First, there is the currently dominant paradigm in the analysis of health care, the two-part model of health care demand. This is compared with the new approach that is based on the idea of latent classes of individuals in the population that differ systematically from each other in their pattern of the demand for health care. Each approach leads to different econometric framework for the analysis of health care demand. These different frameworks are used to reanalyze a classic data set in health economics