Cultural origins of preventive health care utilization

We examine whether preventive health care uptake varies with cultural background related to patience and risk-taking. We combine individual-level survey data on preventive care use from 27 European countries with country-level preference measures from the Global Preferences Survey. To reduce confounding from institutional and economic correlates of culture, we focus on second-generation immigrants, who were born and currently reside in the same country – and thus face the same health care system and broad economic environment – but differ in inherited cultural background through their parents’ countries of origin. We find that respondents from more patient cultural backgrounds are more likely to use preventive services, while those from more risk-tolerant backgrounds are less likely to do so. These patterns appear across multiple preventive care outcomes.