On October 27,2023, from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM, Peking University Institute for Global Health and Development successfully hosted the fourth session of the Fall 2023 Reading Club.The keynote speaker for this event was Assistant Professor Yang Jianan from Peking University Institute for Global Health and Development.

The abstracts of the two articles presented were as follows:

Title: "The Impact of Self or Social-regarding Messages: Experimental Evidence from Antibiotics Purchases in China"

Abstract: We study two interventions in Beijing, China, that provide patients with information on antibiotic resistance via text message to discourage the overuse of antibiotics. The messages were sent once a month for five months. One intervention emphasizes the threat to the recipient’s own health and is found to have negligible effects. The other intervention, which highlights the overall threat to society, reduces antibiotics purchases by 17% in dosage without discouraging healthcare visits and other medicine purchases. The results demonstrate that prosocial messaging can have the potential to address public health issues that require collective action.

Title: "Drug Affordability, Utilization and Adherence: Evidence from a Prescription Drug Price Reduction in China"

Abstract: Improving drug affordability are challenges faced by governments globally. In developing countries, the existence of non-price barriers to healthcare utilization makes the effect of improving affordability ambiguous. This paper evaluates the effect of price reduction on drug utilization and adherence by studying a drug procurement program in China, which brought down the prices of 10 chronic condition drugs by an average of 78%. Using a difference-in-differences design with a set of comparable drugs as controls, we find that this improvement in affordability led to a significant increase in demand by uninsured patients, whose purchases of treated drugs increased by 28.4% more than the insured. This response came both from new and existing medication takers. Drug adherence was improved for the uninsured who had poorer adherence at baseline. Our findings suggest that the bargaining power of the government to negotiate down drug prices can significantly improve utilization and adherence for the uninsured in the case of chronic conditions, which increasingly account for a large share of the disease burden in developing countries.

 

Source：

He, Daixin, Lu，Fangwen and Jianan Yang. 2023. Impact of self- or social-regarding health messages: Experimental evidence based on antibiotics purchases.Journal of Development Economics, Vol 163. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103056

He, Daixin, and Jianan Yang. 2021. Drug Affordability, Utilization and Adherence: Evidence from a Prescription Drug Price Reduction in China. Available at:https://www.dropbox.com/s/f0qi6ow3cb2h56q/JiananYangjmp.pdf ?dl = 0 

（By Zhang Huyang）