Sibling spillovers and the choice to get vaccinated: Evidence from a regression discontinuity design

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Health Economics
Year: 2024
Volume: 94
Issue: C

Authors (3)

Humlum, Maria Knoth (Aarhus Universitet) Morthorst, Marius Opstrup (not in RePEc) Thingholm, Peter Rønø (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We investigate the effects of introducing population-wide free-of-charge Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programs on the targeted adolescent cohorts and their siblings. For identification, we rely on regression discontinuity designs and high-quality Danish administrative data to exploit that date of birth determines program eligibility. We find that the programs increased the HPV vaccine take-up of both the targeted children (53.2 percentage points for girls and 36.0 percentage points for boys) and their older same-sex siblings (4.5 percentage points for sisters and 3.5 percentage points for brothers). We show that while the direct effects of the programs reduced HPV vaccine take-up inequality, the spillover effects, in contrast, contributed to an increase in vaccine take-up inequality highlighting the potential importance of spillover effects in the determination of distributional consequences of public health programs. Finally, we find some evidence of cross-vaccine spillovers.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jhecon:v:94:y:2024:i:c:s0167629623001200
Journal Field
Health
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-02-02