Evaluating the Treatment Program with Sequential Compliance: an Application on Alcohol Abuse Treatme
2002/03/15
研討會日期 : 2002-03-15
時間 : 11:00
主講人 : Mr. Hsien-Ming Lien
地點 : B棟110室
演講者簡介 : Mr. Hsienming Lien為Ph.D in Economics，Boston University (expected 2002)。
現正申請本所研究職務中。
其主要研究領域為Health Economics、Industrial Organization及Applied Econometrics。
演講摘要 : One of the most prominent problems in health care delivery is the prevalence of non-compliance, namely the inability for patients to commit to the doctor's suggested medications, such as dropping out before receiving the full treatment or attending treatment irregularly. This paper develops and empirically estimates a structural model in which alcohol abuse clients sequentially make their compliance decisions. Because clients in the data receive outpatient treatment, I define compliance as the attendance for recommended sessions and noncompliance as missing the session or dropping out the program. The model estimates suggest that compliant clients, i.e., those who attend the session, are different from non-compliant ones, i.e., those who miss the session or drop out the program, on their unobserved characteristics, such as the preferences of treatment, psychic costs of compliance and benefits of recovery. By contrast, the received health benefit has little influence on a client's compliance decision. Policy experiments based on our estimates indicate that restricting clients not to miss the session, i.e., forcing regular attendance, has a small impact on the chance of abstinence at discharge. A more effective way to enhance the program performance is to mandate clients to attend a certain number of sessions. Finally, providing more or better treatment has small effects on both compliance and health of alcohol abuse clients.
