TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lleras-Muney,Adriana
AU  - Lichtenberg,Frank R.
TI  - The Effect of Education on Medical Technology Adoption: Are the More Educated More Likely to Use New Drugs
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9185
PY  - 2002
Y2  - September 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9185
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9185.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Adriana Lleras-Muney
Department of Economics
9373 Bunche Hall
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Tel: 310/825-3925
Fax: NA
E-Mail: alleras@ECON.UCLA.EDU

Frank R. Lichtenberg
Columbia University
504 Uris Hall
3022 Broadway
New York, NY  10027
Tel: 212/854-4408
Fax: (212) 854-9895
E-Mail: frl1@columbia.edu
AB  - There is a large body of work that documents a strong, positive correlation between education and measures of health, but little is known about the mechanisms by which education might affect health. One possibility is that more educated individuals are more likely to adopt new medical technologies. We investigate this theory by asking whether more educated people are more likely to use newer drugs, while controlling for other individual characteristics, such as income and insurance status. Using the 1997 MEPS, we find that more highly educated people are more likely to use drugs more recently approved by the FDA. We find that education only matters for individuals who repeatedly purchase drugs for a given condition, suggesting that the more educated are better able to learn from experience.
ER  -