The effect of physician supply on health status as measured in the NPHS

Abstract

We use data from the Canadian National Population Health Survey and the Canadian Institute for Health Information to estimate the relationship between per capita supply of physicians, both general practitioners and specialists, on health status. Measures of quality of life, self-assessed health status and the Health Utility Index are explored. The sample consists of all individuals who were age 18 or over at the beginning of the survey in 1994, and the sub-sample includes only individuals who were not diagnosed with a chronic condition for the first four years. Most previous studies of the effect of physician supply on health status used data only on individual who had specific health problems, and many of them used outcomes related to the length of life of the patient. Random effects ordered probits are used to model self assessed health status and quantile regressions are used for the Health Utility Index. A higher supply of specialists is correlated with worse health outcomes, while a higher supply of general practitioners is correlated with better health outcomes as measured by both measures of health status.