Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
7362923 | Journal of Health Economics | 2018 | 34 Pages |
Abstract
Parental fear of vaccines has limited vaccination rates in the United States. I test whether disease outbreaks increase vaccination using a new dataset of county-level disease and vaccination data. I find that pertussis (whooping cough) outbreaks in a county decrease the share of unvaccinated children entering kindergarten. These responses do not reflect changes in the future disease risk. I argue that these facts are best fit by a model in which individuals are both myopic and irrational. This suggests that better promotion of information about outbreaks could enhance the response.
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Public Health and Health Policy
Authors
Emily Oster,