title: Are prenatal care resources distributed efficiently across high-risk and low-risk mothers?
abstract: The Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement recommends reducing the number of prenatal care visits recommended for low-risk women, citing evidence from a randomized clinical trial indicating that the reduction would not adversely impact infant health. We investigate the implicit hypothesis that prenatal care resources are not distributed efficiently across high-risk and low-risk women. Using clinic-reported prenatal care and an inclusive measure of infant health, we report evidence indicating inefficient resource utilization: prenatal care only boosts infant health when mothers have specific pre-existing diagnoses, but women with high potential to benefit from care do not obtain more care than other women.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics (030), University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV 89557-0030, USA. sankarm@unr.edu
authors.forename: Sankar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mukhopadhyay
authors.forename: Jeanne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wendel
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D005260:Female; D015276:Health Care Rationing; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health; D008423:Maternal Age; D008875:Middle Aged; D017059:Models, Econometric; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011247:Pregnancy; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome; D018566:Pregnancy, High-Risk; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D055815:Young Adult