Table 5:

Matching/nearest neighbor estimates-Effect of receiving a referral letter on change in blood pressure, diagnosis and use of medication

	Change in systolic blood pressure 2013–17	Change in diastolic blood pressure 2013–17	Prob. of being hypertensive (2017)	Diagnosis (2017)	Medication (2017)
		No controls
ATET	−8.484	−2.817	−.196	.277***	.117**
P-value	.321	.365	.171	.000	.023
Obs.	207	207	207	207	207
Average distance	1.21	1.21	1.21	1.21	1.21
		With controls
ATET	−9.810*	−2.270	−.122	.225***	.132**
P-value	.078	.354	.217	.005	.010
Obs.	204	204	204	204	204
Average distance	.984	.984	.984	.984	.984
		With controls + SD
ATET	−12.63**	−6.394**	−.374***	.207**	.136***
P-value	.024	.010	.000	.011	.009
Obs.	204	204	204	204	204
Average distance	1.59	1.59	1.59	1.59	1.59

Note: The table shows Average Treatment Effects on Treated (ATET) estimates of receiving a referral card in 2013 on blood pressure related outcomes using a matching estimator. Change in systolic blood pressure is the difference between the average of the three systolic blood pressure measures in 2017 and in 2013. Change in diastolic blood pressure is the difference between the average of the three diastolic blood pressure measures in 2017 and in 2013. We define someone as being hypertensive if the mean systolic or diastolic blood pressure measurements was greater or equal to 140 and 90, respectively. Diagnosis is a dummy equal to 1 if the respondent has been diagnosed by a medical professional in the last two years (2017 survey). Medication is a dummy equal to 1 if the respondent is currently taking medication for blood pressure (2017 survey). We restrict the number of matches to be at least 4 and match respondents based on their mean systolic blood pressure in 2013, limiting the distance for possible matches to be at most 10. “Distance” represent the mean of the average distances between each observation and their matches. “With controls” includes a sex dummy, age and region dummies.

^*p < 0.1,

^**p < 0.05,

^***p < 0.01.