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Publications
Publications
  • 2018
  • Working Paper

Two Hundred Years of Health and Medical Care: The Importance of Medical Care for Life Expectancy Gains

By: Maryaline Catillon, David Cutler and Thomas Getzen
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
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Abstract

Using two hundred years of national and Massachusetts data on medical care and health, we examine how central medical care is to life expectancy gains. While common theories about medical care cost growth stress growing demand, our analysis highlights the importance of supply side factors, including the major public investments in research, workforce training and hospital construction that fueled a surge in spending over the 1955-1975 span. There is a stronger case that personal medicine affected health in the second half of the twentieth century than in the preceding 150 years. Finally, we consider whether medical care productivity decreases over time, and find that spending increased faster than life expectancy, although the ratio stabilized in the past two decades.

Keywords

Mortality; Life Expectancy; Medical Care; Productivity; Public Health; Healthcare Spending; Spending Per Year Of Life Gained; Personal Medicine; Technophysio Evolution; Health; Economics; Health Care and Treatment; Spending; Data and Data Sets; Health Industry

Citation

Catillon, Maryaline, David Cutler, and Thomas Getzen. "Two Hundred Years of Health and Medical Care: The Importance of Medical Care for Life Expectancy Gains." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 25330, December 2018.
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More from the Authors
  • Assessment of Electronic Health Record Use Between U.S. and Non-U.S. Health Systems By: A Jay Holmgren, Lance Downing, David W. Bates, Tait D. Shanafelt, Arnold Milstein, Christopher Sharp, David Cutler, Robert S. Huckman and Kevin A. Schulman
  • Vertical Integration of Healthcare Providers Increases Self-Referrals and Can Reduce Downstream Competition: The Case of Hospital-Owned Skilled Nursing Facilities By: David Cutler, Leemore S. Dafny, David Grabowski, Steven S. Lee and Christopher Ody
  • Trends and Predictors of Biomedical Research Quality, 1990–2015: A Meta-Research Study By: Maryaline Catillon
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