Does disease cause vaccination? Disease outbreaks and vaccination response

Emily Oster

Journal of Health Economics, 2018, vol. 57, issue C, 90-101

Abstract: Parental fear of vaccines has limited vaccination rates in the United States. I test whether disease outbreaks increase vaccination using a new dataset of county-level disease and vaccination data. I find that pertussis (whooping cough) outbreaks in a county decrease the share of unvaccinated children entering kindergarten. These responses do not reflect changes in the future disease risk. I argue that these facts are best fit by a model in which individuals are both myopic and irrational. This suggests that better promotion of information about outbreaks could enhance the response.

Keywords: Vaccination; Pertussis outbreak (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (59)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:57:y:2018:i:c:p:90-101

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2017.10.003

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