Incentivized Peer Referrals for Tuberculosis Screening: Evidence from India

Jessica Goldberg, Mario Macis and Pradeep Chintagunta

Working Paper CRENoS from Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia

Abstract: We use a field experiment with 3,176 patients at 122 tuberculosis treatment clinics in India to test whether peer referrals increase screening and identification of patients with an infectious disease. Low-cost financial incentives considerably raise the probability that current patients refer prospective patients for screening and testing, resulting in the cost-effective identification of new tuberculosis cases. Incentivized referrals operate through two mechanisms - peers have private information about individuals in their social networks (beyond their immediate families) to target for outreach, and peers are more effective than traditional contact tracing by paid health workers in inducing these individuals to get tested.

Keywords: tuberculosis; referrals; social networks; case finding; incentives; India; health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Incentivized Peer Referrals for Tuberculosis Screening: Evidence from India (2023)
Working Paper: Incentivized Peer Referrals for Tuberculosis Screening: Evidence from India (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201911

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