Health Economics Seminars (EUR)

Speaker(s)
Denzil Fiebig (The University of New South Wales, Australia)
Date
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Location
Rotterdam

In order to better understand choice behaviour, econometric models need to be able to reflect the complexity of decisions that individuals routinely face. We investigate the role of choice complexity in modelling medical decision-making in the case of a doctor choosing which specific contraceptive products to discuss with their patient before ultimately making a recommendation. Clinical vignettes describing patients, developed using stated preference methods, are presented to a sample of Australian general practitioners. An econometric model is developed that captures two salient sources of complexity. The first is associated with patients with particular combinations of clinical and demographic attributes that induce uncertainty around what product to recommend while the second captures variation in the ability of doctors to find appropriate patient-product matches. We are especially interested in the tendencies of doctors to discuss long-acting reversible contraception(LARC) in order to determine whether part of the explanation for the relatively low uptake of LARC in Australia is reluctance on the part of some doctors to even discuss these products.