Tuesday, 18 April 2023

Ethnic and social inequalities in access to health care

Evidence from a nation-wide field experiment in Germany

WZB Talk by Jianghong Li and Jan Paul Heisig - Online Event

Existing research in Germany based on survey reports suggest that patients with low income and non-German names are discriminated against both in access to health care and in treatment by specialists. However, because this research is mostly based on interviews with affected individuals, the findings are prone to bias. Field experiments can provide robust evidence of discrimination due to ethnic and socioeconomic background. Using a large-scale and nationwide field experimental design, we investigated whether patients with foreign-sounding names or with public health insurance are discriminated against in access to health care and whether the extent of discrimination differs between different ethnic groups.

Our results show that physicians and psychotherapists prefer patients with German-sounding names, or with a doctorate, and/or with private health insurance.

Jianghong Li is a Research Fellow of the President's Research Group.
Jan Paul Heisig is Head of the Research Group Health and Social Inequality.

Please note that this event takes place in English only with no translation.

The event is part of the WZB Talks series.

-----
The WZB will record this event, which is carried out via Zoom. The audio recording will be separated from the video recording and published on the WZB website (https://www.wzb.eu/de/node/66702) in order to present the talk to an interested public. The video recordings are deleted after editing and are not passed on to third parties. If you participate in the event with spoken contributions, this information as well as the name you provided will be published. If you want to participate in the discussion without your contributions being published, you can use the chat function to submit questions.

Please note that information on the Internet is accessible worldwide, can be found with search engines and linked to other information. Recordings that can be accessed via the Internet can be copied and distributed at any time.

We require your consent to record the event and to publish the audio recording. You will be asked by Zoom whether you agree to the recording. Your consent is voluntary, without consent, however, you can not participate in this event. You can revoke your consent at any time with effect for the future, e.g. at wzb [at] wzb.eu. In this case, the recordings will be deleted from the pages operated by us or edited in a form that ensures that your contributions are removed. The data handling up to that point remains lawful. Further information on data security, your rights and the contact details of our Data Protection Commissioner can be found here.