The Benefits of Prenatal Care: Evidence from the SARS Epidemic in Taiwan
2015/03/10
研討會日期 : 2015-03-10
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Professor Hsienming Lien
主持人 : Professor Stacey Chen
地點 : Conference Room B110
演講者簡介 : Professor Lien received his Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University at 2002. He is currently a Distinguished Professor at Department of Public Finance, National Cheng-Chi University. His research fields are Health Economics, Industrial Organization, and Applied Econometrics.
演講摘要 : In spite that number studies have shown the positive association between prenatal care and better birth outcomes, there is still scarce literature identifying the causal effect of prenatal care on birth outcomes. On the one hand, women who anticipate a poor birth outcome may be more likely to have prenatal care. On the other hand, women with a propensity to engage in a variety of healthy behaviors may be more likely to have prenatal care. In either case, the self-selected maternal care posits a challenge to identify the contribution of prenatal care on health outcome. In this study, we investigate the impact of prenatal visits on birth outcomes using the 2003 SARS epidemic in Taiwan as a source of exogenous variation on prenatal care. Our data are obtained from the NHID containing the complete outpatient records of prenatal visits. Our measures of birth outcomes include the incidence of cesarean section, preterm birth, preventable complications and obstetric trauma during delivery. Our first-stage estimates demonstrate that women pregnant at the time of the epidemic experienced a drastic decline in the prenatal care, approximately 1.8 (or 20%) out of the average 9.2 maternal visits. More importantly, the decline of maternity visits exhibits obvious geographic variations, indicating the presence of peer effect across areas. Using the average number of prenatal visits at the same hospitals as instrument, our IV results suggest that prenatal care visits significantly reduce the probability of having a preterm birth and the probability of having a birth complication, but increase the incidence of cesarean section.
