The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Policy Response on Health Care Utilization
Evidence from County-Level Medical Claims and Cellphone Data
Published in: Journal of Health Economics (2022). doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2022.102581
Posted on RAND.org on March 31, 2022
Shelter-in-place policies during the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with reductions in the use of preventive care, elective care, and the number of weekly visits to physician offices, hospitals and other health care-related industries. The results imply that while social distancing policies do lead to reductions in health care utilization, much of these reductions would have occurred even in the absence of these policies.
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