Increasing the take-up of public health services: An at-scale experiment on digital government

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Public Economics
Year: 2023
Volume: 227
Issue: C

Authors (4)

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 4 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

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

Abstract

Increasing public service take-up is a critical challenge. We invested in a government-run digital appointment system for an important health screening service and conducted a large-scale experiment encouraging its use, specifically assessing the influence of transactions costs and information. Using administrative records on the near-universe of eligible women (47,600) in Uruguay’s capital city, we randomized invitations to book with our digital-system or as-usual with local clinics. Digital encouragements doubled medical visits versus as-usual invitations, and tripled compared to a pure control group (5.5 % versus 1.9 %) over 16 weeks. These large impacts are highly cost-effective, mediated by salience and reduced transactions costs.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:pubeco:v:227:y:2023:i:c:s0047272723001573
Journal Field
Public
Author Count
4
Added to Database
2026-01-25