Do the more educated utilize more health care services? Evidence from Vietnam using a regression discontinuity design

Abstract

In 1991, Vietnam implemented a compulsory primary schooling reform that provides this study a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of education on health care utilization with a regression discontinuity design. This paper finds that education causes statistically significant impacts on health care utilization, although the signs of the impacts change with specific types of health care services examined. In particular, education increases the inpatient utilization of the public health sector, but it reduces the outpatient utilization of both the public and private health sectors. The estimates are strongly robust to various windows of the sample choice. The paper also discovers that the links between education and the probability of health insurance and income play essential roles as potential mechanisms to explain the causal impact of education on health care utilization in Vietnam.

What Drives Outpatient Care Costs in Kenya? An Analysis With Generalized Estimating Equations

“…Thus, those without education may rely on facilities to diagnose their symptoms, thereby incurring more expenses. A similar observation was observed in Vietnam, that increased education reduced outpatient healthcare utilization ( 56 ). It has been argued that an increase in education could have positive impacts on health-related outcomes, such as low risks of illnesses and healthier habits ( 57 ).…”

Intergenerational Earnings and Income Mobility in Vietnam

“…Moreover, over the last decades Vietnam made educational reforms providing more opportunities for its citizens to access to schooling and thus to improve educational outcomes which in turn has advanced economic outcomes for the next generations compared to their parents (Cornelissen and Dang, ; Dang, , ). Therefore, many Vietnamese labourers have upwardly moved in the ladder of income compared to their parents’ economic status, and then the relative degree inequality of opportunity in Vietnam is not low compared to other developing countries which have the similar context of development like Vietnam.…”

Retirement and health services utilization in a low‐income country*

“…Meanwhile, despite only accounting for a small share of health services provided, the private sector has become an increasingly important delivery channel in the national health system, providing health services with better quality but with high prices to high-income people (World Health Organization, 2012). Therefore, when examining the use of health services in Vietnam, it is crucial to look at both the public and the private health sectors (Dang, 2018).…”