Estimation in the zero-inflated bivariate Poisson model, with an application to health-care utilization data

Abstract

Data on the demand for medical care is usually measured by a number of different counts. These count data are most often correlated and subject to high proportions of zeros. However, excess zeros and the dependence between these data can jointly affect several utilization measures.In this paper, the zero-inflated bivariate Poisson regression model (ZIBP) was used to analyze health-care utilization data. First, the asymptotic properties of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of this model were investigated theoretically. Then, a simulation study is conducted to evaluate the behaviour of the estimator in finite samples. Finally, an application of the ZIBP model to health care demand data is provided by way of illustration.