TY - JOUR
T1 - Addressing antibiotic abuse in China
T2 - An experimental audit study
AU - Currie, Janet
AU - Lin, Wanchuan
AU - Meng, Juanjuan
PY - 2014/9
Y1 - 2014/9
N2 - China has high rates of antibiotic abuse and antibiotic resistance but the causes are still a matter for debate. Strong physician financial incentives to prescribe are likely to be an important cause. However, patient demand (or physician beliefs about patient demand) is often cited and may also play a role. We use an audit study to examine the effect of removing financial incentives, and to try to separate out the effects of patient demand. We implement a number of different experimental treatments designed to try to rule out other possible explanations for our findings. Together, our results suggest that financial incentives are the main driver of antibiotic abuse in China, at least in the young and healthy population we draw on in our study.
AB - China has high rates of antibiotic abuse and antibiotic resistance but the causes are still a matter for debate. Strong physician financial incentives to prescribe are likely to be an important cause. However, patient demand (or physician beliefs about patient demand) is often cited and may also play a role. We use an audit study to examine the effect of removing financial incentives, and to try to separate out the effects of patient demand. We implement a number of different experimental treatments designed to try to rule out other possible explanations for our findings. Together, our results suggest that financial incentives are the main driver of antibiotic abuse in China, at least in the young and healthy population we draw on in our study.
KW - Antibiotic abuse
KW - Audit study
KW - China
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84903477189&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84903477189&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2014.05.006
DO - 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2014.05.006
M3 - Article
C2 - 26949284
AN - SCOPUS:84903477189
VL - 110
SP - 39
EP - 51
JO - Journal of Development of Economics
JF - Journal of Development of Economics
SN - 0304-3878
ER -