Does Diversity Matter for Health? Experimental Evidence from Oakland

Marcella Alsan, Owen Garrick, Grant C. Graziani

NBER Working Paper No. 24787
Issued in June 2018, Revised in August 2019
NBER Program(s):Health Economics

We study the effect of physician workforce diversity on the demand for preventive care among African-American men. In an experiment in Oakland, California, we randomize black men to black or non-black male medical doctors. We use a two-stage design, measuring decisions before (pre-consultation) and after (post-consultation) meeting their assigned doctor. Subjects select a similar number of preventives in the preconsultation stage, but are much more likely to select every preventive service, particularly invasive services, once meeting with a racially concordant doctor. Our findings suggest black doctors could reduce the black-white male gap in cardiovascular mortality by 19%.

A non-technical summary of this paper is available in the 2018 number 4 issue of the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.

Supplementary materials for this paper:

• data appendix
• randomized controlled trials registry entry

Acknowledgments

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX

Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w24787

Published: Marcella Alsan & Owen Garrick & Grant Graziani, 2019. "Does Diversity Matter for Health? Experimental Evidence from Oakland," American Economic Review, vol 109(12), pages 4071-4111. citation courtesy of