Preference for gender concordant GP and medical deserts

This study brings new knowledge to the literature on GP gender concordance and the challenges which medical deserts pose. Using a unique French healthcare claims database with socioeconomic patient data, our study highlights a preference for same-gender GPs. Furthermore, it provides – for the first time – estimates of the impact of gender concordance in patients’ choice of GP on policies aimed at tackling the problem of medical deserts by increasing medical density. Employing a novel policy impact analysis, our study demonstrates that simply increasing the number of GPs will not effectively address medical desert issues. In particular, inserting male (respectively, female) GPs into areas with low female (male) GP densities has a smaller impact than inserting female (respectively, male) GPs into these areas. Accordingly, our research suggests that policies should consider the most suitable GP gender to introduce in order to be more effective. Such an approach could help reduce both geographic and gender inequities in access to care.