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

Maria Humlum, Marius Opstrup Morthorst and Peter Rønø Thingholm

Journal of Health Economics, 2024, vol. 94, issue C

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.

Keywords: Health investments; Health behavior; Peer effects; Sibling spillovers; HPV; Vaccine; Health inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I12 I14 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Related works:
Working Paper: Sibling Spillovers and the Choice to Get Vaccinated: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:94:y:2024:i:c:s0167629623001200

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2023.102843

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