Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35422677›Full record

ArticleThe quarterly journal of economics2022

Selection with Variation in Diagnostic Skill: Evidence from Radiologists.

David C Chan, Matthew Gentzkow, Chuan Yu

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The quarterly journal of economics, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
22citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact, top 98% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

22 citing papers in PubMed, 0 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Effects of Prior Diagnosis on Second Opinions and Pathologist Viewing Behaviors: Results from a Randomized Trial in Breast Pathology.Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making · 2026
    Trial
  2. Article
  3. Review
  4. Building Nondiscriminatory Algorithms in Selected Data.American economic review. Insights · 2025
    Article
  5. Doing More with Less: Predicting Primary Care Provider Effectiveness.The review of economics and statistics · 2025
    Article
  6. Article
  7. A Visual Analytics Framework for Assessing Interactive AI for Clinical Decision Support.Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing. Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing · 2025
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Eviction and Poverty in American Cities.The quarterly journal of economics · 2024
    Article
  12. Review
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Measuring Racial Discrimination in Bail Decisions.The American economic review · 2022
    Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

David C ChanStanford University, Department of Veterans Affairs, and National Bureau of Economic Research, United States.
Matthew GentzkowStanford University and National Bureau of Economic Research, United States.
Chuan YuStanford University, United States.
Stanford University · USNational Bureau of Economic Research · US

Funding

Measuring and Understanding Diagnostic Quality from Large-Scale DataR01HS027990 · AHRQ · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · PI David Chimin Chan · 2022 to 2026
$1.9M
The Benefit and Burden of Electronic Reminders for Optimizing Patient CareDP5OD019903 · OD · PALO ALTO VETERANS INSTIT FOR RESEARCH · PI CHAN, DAVID CHIMIN · 2014 to 2018
$1.8M
AHRQ HHS R01 HS027990NIH HHS DP5 OD019903
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Physicians, judges, teachers, and agents in many other settings differ systematically in the decisions they make when faced with similar cases. Standard approaches to interpreting and exploiting such differences assume they arise solely from variation in preferences. We develop an alternative framework that allows variation in preferences and diagnostic skill and show that both dimensions may be partially identified in standard settings under quasi-random assignment. We apply this framework to study pneumonia diagnoses by radiologists. Diagnosis rates vary widely among radiologists, and descriptive evidence suggests that a large component of this variation is due to differences in diagnostic skill. Our estimated model suggests that radiologists view failing to diagnose a patient with pneumonia as more costly than incorrectly diagnosing one without, and that this leads less skilled radiologists to optimally choose lower diagnostic thresholds. Variation in skill can explain 39% of the variation in diagnostic decisions, and policies that improve skill perform better than uniform decision guidelines. Failing to account for skill variation can lead to highly misleading results in research designs that use agent assignments as instruments.

Identifiers

PMID35422677
PMCPMC8992547
OpenAlexW3128921526

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.