Low Flu Shot Rates Puzzle—Some Plausible Behavioral Explanations

Shosh Shahrabani, Amiram Gafni and Uri Ben-Zion

The American Economist, 2008, vol. 52, issue 1, 66-72

Abstract: The paper presents an economic model to analyze an individual's decision about whether or not to be vaccinated against influenza. It shows that based upon objective parameters, the vaccination rate should be high. Yet, empirical findings indicate low vaccination rates. Therefore, we use the behavioral approach and subjective variables to explain the empirical findings. The subjective variables in the model include perceived infection probability, time preference, subjective costs of vaccination, perceived severity of illness and perceived vaccination effectiveness. A low vaccination rate has a negative externality on society. The paper discusses potential policies that can be applied to changing the situation.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/056943450805200106 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:amerec:v:52:y:2008:i:1:p:66-72

DOI: 10.1177/056943450805200106

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The American Economist from Sage Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().