We consider a compelling research question raised by the growing prevalence of overweight among adolescents: do overweight adolescents incur greater health care expenditures than adolescents of normal weight? To address this question, we use data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and estimate a two-part, generalized linear model (GLM) of health spending. Considering separate models by gender, we find that overweight females incur $790 more in annual expenditures than those of normal weight but we find no expenditure differences by bodyweight for males. We find that mental health spending is associated with part of the disparity in expenditures for adolescent females but establishing causality between mental health problems and weight-related health expenditure differences is challenging.
The author uses data from the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey to investigate the extent and determinants of gender differences in days lost from work due to illness. She finds that for both men and women, health status measures, such as self-reported health status and medical events, more consistently explained absenteeism than did economic factors such as wages and the presence of sick leave. The presence of young children increased women's, but not men's, probability of missing work, as well as women's number of absences for those who missed work in 1987. Among men who were absent from work in 1987, however, the presence of children in day care increased the number of days lost from work. In that riegard, those men, most of whom were likely to be either single parents or married with a working wife, behaved more like mothers with young children than like other men.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.