Folic acid advisories: a public health challenge?

Daniel Herrera‐Araujo
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Daniel Herrera-Araujo

Health Economics, 2016, vol. 25, issue 9, 1104-1122

Abstract: Neural tube defects are neurological conditions affecting one in 1000 fetuses in France each year. If a fetus is affected, there is a 90% chance that the pregnancy will be terminated. Increasing folic acid intake to 400μg per day 2months before and 2months after conception reduces prevalence rates by at least 40%. In 2005, France introduced a social marketing campaign seeking to increase the intake of folic acid by to‐be‐pregnant and pregnant women through information provision. This paper sets up a quasi‐experimental setting to measure the impact of the French social marketing campaign on availability and preferences for folic acid. I combine detailed scanner data on grocery purchases with a dataset on macronutrients and micronutrients. The identification strategy exploits the variation in the usefulness of folic acid information between households: households that are pregnant or want to conceive a child use it, while those that are not pregnant do not. Results suggest evidence of a positive impact of the information campaign on folic acid household availability and preferences. A value per statistical neural tube defects case is found to be of at least 12 million. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3362

Related works:
Working Paper: Folic acid advisories: a public health challenge? (2016)
Working Paper: Folic acid advisories: a public health challenge? (2016)
Working Paper: Folic acid advisories, a public health challenge? (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:9:p:1104-1122

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