A survey of econometric models to analyze the demand and utilisation of health care

The aim of this article is to revise the literature about the applied econometric models to the analysis of the demand and utilisation of health care. Due to the difficulty to measure directly the demand of these services, the empirical investigations resort to data of the use of medical services. If the information is obtained from surveys corresponding to individualised data, the econometric specifications more appropriate will be the discrete choice models, censored, count data and hurdle, depending on: the explicated variable and the agent who decides. When the utilisation is quantified by aggregate data, it is possible to analyse the themes of variability in geographical areas and the inappropriate use by multivariate regression models. The mentioned methods show some limitations that can be overcome by panel data and multilevel models.