Objective:

Determine the effect of Seguro Popular (SP) on preventive care utilization among low-income SP beneficiaries and uninsured elders in Mexico.

Materials and methods:

Fixed-effects instrumental-variable (FE-IV) pseudo-panel estimation from three rounds of the Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey (2000, 2006 and 2012).

Results:

Our findings suggest that SP has no significant effect on the use of preventive services, including screening for diabetes, hypertension, breast cancer and cervical cancer, by adults aged 50 to 75 years.

Conclusions:

Despite the evidence that suggests that SP has increased access to health insurance for the poor, inequalities in healthcare access and utilization still exist in Mexico. The Mexican government must keep working on extending health insurance coverage to vulnerable adults. Additional efforts to increase health care coverage and to support preventive care are needed to reduce persistent disparities in healthcare utilization.