Patient education and the impact of new medical research.
We examine the impact that medical research published in peer-reviewed journals has on the practice of medicine. We exploit the release of a recent New England Journal of Medicine article which demonstrated that the risks of attempting a vaginal birth after having a previous C-section birth (VBAC) were higher than previously thought. We find that immediately following this article, the national VBAC rate dropped by 16% and this change was largest among more educated mothers, particularly those with a graduate degree.
162 FOB, Department of Economics, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, United States. joe price@byu.edu
Joseph
J
Price
Kosali
K
Simon
D000328:Adult; D035843:Biomedical Research; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D014481:United States; D016064:Vaginal Birth after Cesarean / Q000706:statistics & numerical data