Initiatives Based on the Psychology of Scarcity Can Increase Covid-19 Vaccinations

Alessandro Del Ponte, Audrey De Dominicis and Paolo Canofari

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Background: Here we investigate whether releasing COVID-19 vaccines in limited quantities and at limited times boosted Italy's vaccination campaign in 2021. This strategy exploits insights from psychology and consumer marketing. Methods: We built an original dataset covering 200 days of vaccination data in Italy, including 'open day' events. Open-day events (in short: open days) are instances where COVID-19 vaccines were released in limited quantities and only for a specific day at a specified location (usually, a large pavilion or a public building). Our dependent variables are the number of total and first doses administered in proportion to the eligible population. Our key independent variable is the presence of open-day events in a given region on a specific day. We analyzed the data using regression with fixed effects for time and region. The analysis was robust to alternative model specifications. Findings: We find that when an open day event was organized, in proportion to the eligible population, there was an average 0.39-0.44 percentage point increase in total doses administered and a 0.30-0.33 percentage point increase in first doses administered. These figures correspond to an average increase of 10,455-11,796 in total doses administered and 8,043-8,847 in the first doses administered. Interpretation: Releasing vaccines in limited quantities and at limited times by organizing open-day events was associated with an increase in COVID-19 vaccinations in most Italian regions. These results call for wider adoption of vaccination strategies based on the limited release of vaccines for other infectious diseases or future pandemics.

Date: 2023-10
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.03689 Latest version (application/pdf)

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:arx:papers:2310.03689

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().