The effects of a national policy to reduce c-sections in Brazil.

Autor: Melo C; Insper Institute of Education and Research, São Paulo-SP, Brazil., Menezes-Filho N; Insper Institute of Education and Research, São Paulo-SP, Brazil.; University of São Paulo, São Paulo-SP, Brazil.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Health economics [Health Econ] 2023 Feb; Vol. 32 (2), pp. 501-517. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Nov 12.
DOI: 10.1002/hec.4630
Abstrakt: In this paper, we assess the effects of a national policy implemented in Brazil to avoid unnecessary cesareans. The policy has a supply-side component that prohibits elective c-sections before the 39th gestational week and a demand-side awareness component. Since the policy is not binding for cases with a strong medical c-section indication, we use births of breech- and transverse-positioned babies as a counterfactual for births of cephalic-positioned babies in a difference-in-differences framework. Our results reveal that the policy decreases the rate of c-sections by 1.6 percentage point, and slightly increases gestational time, birthweight, and first-minute APGAR scores. There is evidence that policy effectiveness is driven by its demand-side component.
(© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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