Increasing the take-up of public health services: An at-scale experiment on digital government

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gallegos, Sebastian; Roseth, Benjamin; Cuesta, Ana; Sanchez, Mario
• 署名单位: Universidad Adolfo Ibanez; Inter-American Development Bank
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104975
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: state capacity; Digital government; Health behavior; Administrative barriers; Red tape; Public healthcare; women; behavioral economics; transaction costs; Economic development

摘要

Increasing public service take-up is a critical challenge. We invested in a government-r u n digital appointment system for an important health screening service and conducted a large-scale experiment encouraging its use, specifically assessing the influence of transactions costs and information . Using administrative records on the near-universe of eligible women (47,600) in Uruguay's capital city, we randomized invitations to book with ou r digital-system or as-usual with local clinics. Digital encouragements doubled medical visits versus as-usual invitations, and tripled compared to a pu r e control group (5.5 % versus 1.9 %) over 16 weeks. These large impacts are highly cost-effective, mediated by salience and reduced transactions costs.