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

Sebastian Gallegos, Benjamin Roseth, Ana Cuesta and Mario Sanchez

Journal of Public Economics, 2023, vol. 227, issue C

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.

Keywords: State capacity; Digital government; Health behaviors; Administrative barriers; Red tape; Public healthcare; Women; Behavioral economics; Transaction costs; Economic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D73 D91 H53 I15 O10 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:227:y:2023:i:c:s0047272723001573

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104975

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