Causal Spousal Health Spillover Effects and Implications for Program Evaluation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fletcher, Jason; Marksteiner, Ryne
• 署名单位: University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20150573
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 144-166
• 关键词: smoking-cessation; intervention; BEHAVIOR; combine; TRIAL

摘要

Current methods of cost effectiveness analysis implicitly assume zero spillovers among social ties. This can underestimate the benefits of health interventions and misallocate resources toward interventions with lower comprehensive effects. We discuss the implications of social spillovers for program evaluation and document the first evidence of causal spillovers of health behaviors between spouses by leveraging experimental data from the Lung Health Study (smoking) and COMBINE Study (drinking). We find large decreases in spousal substance use from treatments with a therapy component, which reduces the incremental cost effectiveness ratios of some treatments by 12 to 18 percent.