Working Paper: NBER ID: w30618
Authors: Lisa Y. Ho; Emily Breza; Marcella Alsan; Abhijit Banerjee; Arun G. Chandrasekhar; Fatima Cody Stanford; Renato Fior; Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham; Kelly Holland; Emily Hoppe; Louis-Mal Jean; Lucy Ogbunwobodo; Benjamin A. Olken; Carlos Torres; Pierre-Luc Vautrey; Erica Warner; Esther Duflo
Abstract: COVID-19 vaccines are widely available in wealthy countries, yet many people remain unvaccinated. Understanding the effectiveness -- or lack thereof -- of popular vaccination campaign strategies is therefore critical. In this paper, we report results from two studies that tested strategies central to current vaccination outreach: (1) direct communication by health professionals addressing questions about vaccination and (2) efforts to motivate individuals to promote vaccination within their social networks. Near the peak of the Omicron wave, doctor- and nurse-produced videos were disseminated to 17.8 million Facebook users in the US and 11.5 million in France. In both countries, we cannot reject the null of no effect of any of the interventions on any of the outcome variables (first doses - US and France, second doses and boosters - US). We can reject very small effects on first doses during the interventions in both countries (0.16pp - US, 0.021pp - France). In contrast with similar campaigns earlier in the pandemic to encourage health-preserving behaviors, messaging at this stage of the pandemic -- whether aimed at the unvaccinated or those tasked with encouraging others -- did not change vaccination decisions.
Keywords: COVID-19; Vaccination; Social Media; Advertising Campaigns; Randomized Controlled Trials
JEL Codes: C93; D83; I12; L86; O33
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| large-scale social media campaign featuring videos produced by healthcare professionals (I11) | vaccination rates (I14) |
| messaging aimed at encouraging individuals to become 'immunization ambassadors' (J68) | vaccination rates (I14) |