Effects of sports activities on health care utilization: a new approach based on matching techniques

• Autores: Noelia González Prieto, Marta Pascual Sáez, David Cantarero Prieto
• Localización: XIX Encuentro de Economía Pública: Políticas Públicas para la salida de la crisis, 2012, ISBN 978-84-695-1574-7, pág. 25
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The objective of this paper consists in studying health care utilization associated with the expansion of individual physical or sports activities based on individual data from the Spanish National Health Surveys (SNHS). The determinants in sport activities are analyzed related with many socio-economic variables like socio-demographic situation and education. In particular, propensity score methods and matching techniques are used to estimate the treatment given a vector of observed covariates. We construct two groups: one group of people (sports sample) who are active and a control group of people who are not active (no-sports sample). Thus, public policies evaluation techniques are applied to health problems. The results confirm most of the findings that exist in the literature and with some pronounced exceptions. Estimates indicate that promoting sports activities have positive effects on individual health (assessed with both objective and subjective measures) and that it would be appropriate to promote much more the practice of physical exercise to reduce health care utilization. This information could be employed in public health campaigns in order to increase participation in sports activities.