Learning (or not) in health seeking behavior: Evidence from rural Tanzania

The aim of this paper is to understand the functioning of individualshealth seeking behavior. It studies empirically whether patients adjust their health seeking behavior over time, after they gained new information about the qual-ity of the previous caregiver consulted. In particular, it tests whether patients, who visited an informal (formal) caregiver and remained sick, switch towards formal (informal) clinicians when they fall ill again in the future. I explore whether individuals respond to a "failure to cure " by changing health provider. Results show that patients who sought health care from a type of practitioner (formal or informal) are more likely to switch towards an alternative type of clinician, when the \u85rst one chosen was not e¤ective in curing their disease. These e¤ects are tested using a 4 years panel data from a household survey in Tanzania