Illness-related absence among preschool children: Insights from a health intervention in Swedish preschools

Caroline Hall and Erica Lindahl ()
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Erica Lindahl: IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, Postal: Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden

No 2016:25, Working Paper Series from IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

Abstract: We evaluate the effect of a preschool health intervention aimed at reducing infections through improved hygiene practices and training of the staff. The large-scale design enables us to study heterogeneous effects with respect to several child and preschool characteristics that are assumed to be associated with the initial level of absence, and thereby the potential magnitude of the effect. We find no reduction, on average, in children’s illness-related absence. This conclusion holds across different age groups of preschool children, and for preschools with varying levels of absence before the intervention. However, we do find some evidence for a decline in illness-related absence among children enrolled in preschool sections with relatively few children. We find some empirical support for that the intervention consisted of components with opposing effects on illness-related absence, which may explain the zero average effect.

Keywords: preschool; absence due to illness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2016-12-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-hea
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Published as Hall, Caroline and Erica Lindahl, 'Illness-related absence among preschool children: Insights from a health intervention in Swedish preschools' in Journal of Health Economics, 2017, pages 191-200.

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Journal Article: Illness-related absence among preschool children: Insights from a health intervention in Swedish preschools (2017)
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