Socioeconomic Differences in the Adoption of New Medical Technologies

Dana P. Goldman, James P. Smith

ResearchPublished 2005

New medical technologies hold tremendous promise for improving population health, but they also raise concerns about exacerbating already large differences in health by socioeconomic status. The impact of a new technology on health disparities depends not only on how difficult it is to adhere, but also on who actually receives the treatment. This paper uses hypertension as an example, and we examine the short- and long-term diffusion of anti-hypertensive therapy and how that diffusion varies by a key SES marker, education.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: The American Economic Association
  • Availability: Web-Only
  • Year: 2005
  • Pages: 4
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/pubs
  • Document Number: RP-1199

Originally published in: The American Economic Review, v. 95, no. 2, May 2005, pp. 234-237.

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Version Note

This publication supersedes a previous version published in 2005 (WR-253).