Social Connections and COVID19 Vaccination

Arnab K. Basu, Nancy H. Chau and Oleg Firsin

Health Economics, 2025, vol. 34, issue 6, 1188-1213

Abstract: This paper unpacks the effects of social networks on county‐level COVID19 vaccinations in the US. We jointly assess the contemporaneous and dynamic network ef‐fects of vaccination exposure, to distinguish between network‐mediated contemporane‐ous effects (e.g., “vaccine‐hunter” Facebook groups crowd‐source information about ac‐cess and efficacy) and longer‐term effects (e.g., vaccine exposure chips away vaccine hesi‐tancy). Accounting for possible correlated shocks, socio‐economic/spatial confounders, and pandemic‐related shifters, we find positive stage‐of‐pandemic dependent contempo‐raneous friendship network effects, and null dynamic network effect, thus sharply dis‐tinguishing COVID19 vaccination from other infection‐mitigating practices in terms of openness to social‐learning over time.

Date: 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4953

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Working Paper: Social Connections and COVID-19 Vaccination (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:34:y:2025:i:6:p:1188-1213

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