TY  - JOUR
AU  - Goldman,Dana
AU  - Smith,James P.
TI  - Socioeconomic Differences in the Adoption of New Medical Technologies
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11218
PY  - 2005
Y2  - March 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11218
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11218.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Dana Goldman
Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics
University of Southern California
 3335 S. Figueroa St, Unit A
 Los Angeles, CA 90089-7273
Tel: (213) 821-7948
Fax: (213) 740-3460
E-Mail: dana.goldman@usc.edu

James P. Smith
RAND Corporation
1776 Main Street
P.O. Box 2138
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310-451-6925
E-Mail: smith@rand.org
AB  - 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 (SES). If effective treatments are more rapidly adopted by the better educated, SES health disparities may initially expand even though the health of those in all groups eventually improves. Hypertension provides a useful case study. It is an important risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease, the condition is relatively common, and there are large differences in rates of hypertension by education. This paper examines the short and long-term diffusion of two important classes of anti-hypertensives - ACE inhibitors and calcium channel blockers - over the last twenty-five years. Using three prominent medical surveys, we find no evidence that the diffusion of these drugs into medical practice favored one education group relative to another. The findings suggest that - at least for hypertension - SES differences in the adoption of new medical technologies are not an important reason for the SES health gradient.
ER  -