We evaluate the hypothesis that genetic factors influence the use of health services and prevention behaviors in a national sample of adult twins in the United States. The analysis compares the correlation of these outcomes between identical twins, who share all their genes, to the correlation between nonidentical twins, who share, on average, only one-half of their genes. Because the environmental similarities of twins are assumed to be the same for identical and nonidentical twin pairs, researchers can partition the variance in behavioral outcomes that are due to genetic and environmental factors. Using established methods in this field, we find evidence of significant genetic influences on preferences toward prevention, overall prevention effort, routine checkups, and prescription drug use. Use of curative services does not appear to be influenced by genes. Our findings offer several implications for policymakers and researchers and suggest that genetics could be informative for health services and policy research.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 May 2016.
All research outputs
#12,358,651
of 34,410,315 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Policy Analysis & Management
#875
of 1,376 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#118,295
of 306,384 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Policy Analysis & Management
#7
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,410,315 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 38th percentile – i.e., 38% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,376 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 24.6. This one is in the 16th percentile – i.e., 16% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 50% of its contemporaries.
