Interdependency in vaccination policies among Japanese municipalities.

Economic theory predicts that vaccination policies at the local level can be negatively affected by the policies of neighboring regions because of free-riding motives, whereas positive dependency may exist due to policy diffusions among localities. By using the unique variations in the provision of vaccination subsidies in Japan, we assess how vaccination policies in a local government are affected by the decisions of neighboring governments. We find that the provision of vaccination subsidies is positively correlated with the decisions of neighboring localities. Moreover, a correlation is found with neighboring municipalities within the same prefecture but not with those in surrounding prefectures, indicating that the correlations are likely to arise because of mimicking behavior among localities within a prefecture. Our results show that vaccination policies tend to be formed following neighboring municipalities and do not necessarily aim to optimize community health, thus questioning the autonomy of local government authorities regarding vaccination policies.

Political cycles in physician employment: A case of Japanese local public hospitals.

A shortage of physicians in local public hospitals is often a heated political issue. When local politicians have the authority to intervene in the management of a public hospital, they may increase the employment of physicians during election years in order to alleviate the shortage. We test this hypothesis empirically using a census of city hospitals in Japan from 2002 to 2011 (N = 4583). Our results support the hypothesis that the number of physicians increases in election years. This effect is stronger in cities with a greater population of elderly residents. We also find that physicians tend to come from university hospitals in the same region. Overall, this paper provides direct evidence of political intervention on physician employment.

Copayment Exemption Policy and Healthcare Utilization after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Healthcare utilization after natural disasters remains understudied. In general, people in Japan pay 10%-30% of total amount of costs, according to their health insurance plan. A policy exempting survivors from copayments was introduced after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, which had a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale and followed by devastating tsunamis. Among the disaster-affected areas, Miyagi prefecture experienced the largest number of deaths and the greatest extent of damage. However, the exemption was suspended in Miyagi prefecture from April, 2013, because of the huge governmental financial burden due to the immensity of damage from the disaster. Subsequently, in April 2014, the exemption was re-introduced, with smaller coverage. We, therefore, evaluated the influence of this policy change on monthly healthcare utilization in Miyagi prefecture between April 2008 and June 2015. We also evaluated the association between the proportion of people exempted from copayment in each municipality and the difference in healthcare utilization before and after the suspension using multivariable linear regression. Healthcare utilization in Miyagi increased immediately after the institution of the exemption policy and it peaked after one year. In March 2013, just before the suspension, a rapid increment in healthcare utilization was observed, suggesting that the copayment may be a barrier for people in the disaster-affected area to access to healthcare. The exemption policy did help the survivors to use healthcare utilization in Miyagi. After devastating natural disasters, policymakers should guarantee that all survivors can utilize healthcare services on demand.

Out-of-pocket payments and community-wide health outcomes: an examination of influenza vaccination subsidies in Japan.

While studies have shown that reductions in out-of-pocket payments for vaccination generally encourages vaccination uptake, research on the impact on health outcomes has rarely been examined. Thus, the present study, using municipal-level survey data on a subsidy programme for influenza vaccination in Japan that covers the entire country, examines how reductions in out-of-pocket payments for vaccination among non-elderly individuals through a subsidy programme affected regional-level influenza activity. We find that payment reductions are negatively correlated with the number of weeks with a high influenza alert in that region, although the correlation varied across years. At the same time, we find no significant correlation between payment reductions and the total duration of influenza outbreaks (i.e. periods with a moderate or high alert). Given that a greater number of weeks with a high alert indicates a severer epidemic, our findings suggest that reductions in out-of-pocket payments for influenza vaccination among the non-elderly had a positive impact on community-wide health outcomes, indicating that reduced out-of-pocket payments contributes to the effective control of severe influenza epidemics. This suggests that payment reductions could benefit not only individuals by providing them with better access to preventive care, as has been shown previously, but also communities as a whole by shortening the duration of epidemics.

When do people visit a doctor?

We examine the length of time between when an individual feels sick and when he/she visits a doctor using survival analysis to capture the dynamic aspects of this behavior. If the disease is light, actions such as OTC medicine or sick leave are alternatives to visiting a clinic or a hospital immediately. The timing of the visit depends only the person's decision, not on a doctor's, so we can limit discussion to the effect of ex-post moral hazard excluding physician induced demand. Participants were asked to keep a log of illness-related behavior such as dates of episodes, subjective symptoms, sick leaves, and medical treatment at hospitals. Neither the copayment rate nor access cost had a significant effect on the behavior of visiting a doctor, whereas available alternatives delay the timing of a visiting. Severe symptoms and fever hastened the time. The results suggest that the traditional argument about ex-post moral hazard is somewhat misleading.