Drug Therapy Adherence and Health Outcomes in Presence of Physician and Patient Unobserved Heterogeneity

38 Pages Posted: 3 Feb 2011 Last revised: 23 Jun 2017

See all articles by Vincenzo Atella

Vincenzo Atella

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Centre for International Studies on Economic Growth (CEIS); Department of Economics and Finance; University of Rome Tor Vergata - Faculty of Economics

Federico Belotti

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Department of Economics and Finance; University of Rome, Tor Vergata - Centre for Economics and International Studies (CEIS)

Domenico Depalo

Bank of Italy; Bank of Italy

Date Written: January 12, 2011

Abstract

Understanding the role that drug adherence has on health outcomes in everyday clinical practice is central for the policy maker. This is particularly true when patients suffer from asymptomatic chronic conditions (i.e., hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes). By exploiting a unique longitudinal dataset at patient and physician level in Italy, we show that patients and physicians (observed and unobserved) characteristics play an important role in determining health status, at least as important as drug adherence. Most importantly, we show that physicians can have an important role in determining patient health status, far beyond the standard determinants of health status that clinical and health economic literature have discussed and analysed.

Keywords: Health outcomes, Adherence, Physician heterogeneity, Patient heterogeneity

JEL Classification: I12, O33, C23

Suggested Citation

Atella, Vincenzo and Belotti, Federico and Depalo, Domenico and Depalo, Domenico, Drug Therapy Adherence and Health Outcomes in Presence of Physician and Patient Unobserved Heterogeneity (January 12, 2011). CEIS Working Paper No. 186, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1754540 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1754540

Vincenzo Atella (Contact Author)

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Centre for International Studies on Economic Growth (CEIS) ( email )

Via Columbia, 2
Rome, I-00133
Italy
+39 06 72595648 (Phone)

Department of Economics and Finance ( email )

Via Columbia 2
Roma, 00133
Italy

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Faculty of Economics ( email )

Via Columbia n.2
I-00133 Rome, 00133
Italy
+39 06 72595635 (Phone)
+30 06 2020 500 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.economia.uniroma2.it/sefemeq/professori/atella/

Federico Belotti

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Department of Economics and Finance

Via Columbia 2
Rome, RM 00133
Italy

University of Rome, Tor Vergata - Centre for Economics and International Studies (CEIS) ( email )

Via Columbia, 2
Rome, RM 00133
Italy

Domenico Depalo

Bank of Italy ( email )

Via Nazionale 91
00184 Roma
Italy

Bank of Italy ( email )

Via Nazionale 91
Rome, 00184
Italy

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