More doctors, better health? A generalised synthetic control approach to estimating impacts of increasing doctors under Brazil's Mais Medicos programme.

ABSTRACT: Worldwide, there are an insufficient number of primary care physicians to provide accessible, high-quality primary care services. Better knowledge on the health impacts of policies aimed at improving access to primary care physicians is important for informing future policies. Using a generalised synthetic control estimator (GSC), we estimate the effect of the increase in primary care physicians from the Programa Mais Médicos in Brazil. The GSC allows us to estimates a continuous treatment effects which are heterogenous by region. We exploit the variation in physicians allocated to each Brazilian microregion to identify the impact of an increasing Mais Médicos primary care physicians. We explore hospitalisations and mortality rates (both total and from ambulatory care sensitive conditions)

SUBMITTER: Thomas RL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7618175 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature