title: The War on Poverty's Experiment in Public Medicine: Community Health Centers and the Mortality of Older Americans.
abstract: This paper uses the rollout of the first Community Health Centers (CHCs) to study the longer-term health effects of increasing access to primary care. Within ten years, CHCs are associated with a reduction in age-adjusted mortality rates of 2 percent among those 50 and older. The implied 7 to 13 percent decrease in one-year mortality risk among beneficiaries amounts to 20 to 40 percent of the 1966 poor/non-poor mortality gap for this age group. Large effects for those 65 and older suggest that increased access to primary care has longer-term benefits, even for populations with near universal health insurance. (JEL H75, I12, I13, I18, I32, I38, J14).
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of Michigan, 611 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.
authors.forename: Martha J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Bailey
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of Michigan, 611 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Goodman-Bacon
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003151:Community Health Centers / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends; D011203:Poverty / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011634:Public Health; D014481:United States