Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15105
Authors: Johannes Kunz; Carol Propper
Abstract: This paper examines the association between the quality of hospitals to which residents of a US county are exposed and deaths from COVID-19. We derive a measure of the hospitals accessible to county residents based on ambulance travel patterns. We estimate hospital quality from measures of performance used in a flagship national pay-for-performance program. We find that a standard deviation in local quality-exposure is associated with a roughly 9% lower death rate. The preventive effects of access to high quality hospitals vary sharply by minority composition of the local population.
Keywords: COVID-19; county-level deaths; hospital quality; health care systems; minorities
JEL Codes: H51; I11; I18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Hospital Quality (I11) | COVID-19 Death Rates (Y10) |
| Hospital Quality (I11) | COVID-19 Death Rates (in areas with lower minority populations) (J15) |
| Hospital Quality (I11) | COVID-19 Death Rates (in counties with high share of minority populations) (J15) |
| Hospital Quality (I11) | COVID-19 Cases (Y10) |