Gender differences in physician decisions to adopt new prescription drugs

• Published in: Social science & medicine (1982) 2021-05, Vol.277, p.113886-113886, Article 113886
• Main Authors: Méndez, Susan J., Scott, Anthony, Zhang, Yuting
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aged; Australia; Drugs; Employment; Family physicians; Female; Gender; Gender differences; Health care; Health services; Humans; Innovation; Male; Medical decision making; Medicare; Medicine; National Health Programs; Personality traits; Pharmaceuticals; Physicians; Practice Patterns, Physicians; Prescribing; Prescription Drugs; Primary care; Risk preferences; Sex Characteristics; Sex Factors; Technology adoption; Uptake
• ISSN: 0277-9536; 1873-5347
• DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113886

Physician adoption of new technologies is a key issue for population health and the sustainability of the healthcare system. This paper explores gender differences in general practitioners' (GPs) adoption of new oral anticoagulants. We combine detailed individual data on physician and practice style characteristics from the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) panel survey of Australian physicians with administrative prescribing data from the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) for the period January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2015. After adjusting for various factors proposed in the literature as drivers of this gender gap, in addition to risk preferences and personality traits, we find a large statistical gender difference in the speed of adoption with men being faster than women in uptake. However, conditional on having prescribed for the first time, female and male GPs differ only slightly in the intensity of use of these new drugs. We show that the gender gap depends on the measure of uptake and discuss possible channels that could be driving the relatively large gender difference that remains in the speed of adoption. •We explore gender differences in general practitioners' (GPs) adoption of new oral anticoagulants (NOACs).•We control for various factors suggested in the literature and in addition include risk preferences and personality traits.•We use doctors' survey data linked to administrative records from GPs in Australia.•We find a large gender difference in the speed of adoption with men being faster than women.•But we do not find a significant gender difference in the intensity of adoption.