Bandwagoning, free-riding and heterogeneity in influenza vaccine decisions: an online experiment
Author(s)
Galizzi, M
Lau, K
Miraldo, M
Hauck, K
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
‘Nudge’-based social norms messages conveying high population influenza vaccination coverage levels can encourage vaccination due to bandwagoning effects but also discourage vaccination due to free-riding effects on low risk of infection, making their impact on vaccination uptake ambiguous.We develop a theoretical framework to capture heterogeneity around vaccination behaviors, and empirically measure the causal effects of different messages about vaccination coverage rates on four self-reported and behavioral vaccination intention measures. In an online experiment, N = 1,365 UK adults are randomly assigned to one of seven treatment groups with different messages about their social environment’s coverage rate (varied between 10% and 95%), or a control group with no message. We find that treated groups have significantly greater vaccination intention than the control. Treatment effects increase with the coverage rate up to a 75% level, consistent with a bandwagoning effect. For coverage rates above 75%, the treatment effects, albeit still positive, stop increasing and remain flat (or even decline). Our results suggest that, at higher coverage rates, free-riding behavior may partially crowd out bandwagoning effects of coverage rates messages. We also find significant heterogeneity of these effects depending on the invidual perceptions of risks of infection and of the coverage rates.
Date Issued
2022-04-01
Date Acceptance
2021-11-17
ISSN
1057-9230
Publisher
John Wiley and Sons
Start Page
614
End Page
646
Journal / Book Title
Health Economics
Volume
31
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Authors. Health Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URI
Sponsor
Medical Research Council (MRC)
National Institute for Health Research
Abdul Latif Jameel Foundation
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Grant Number
MR/R015600/1
NIHR200908
EP/V520354/1
Subjects
Social Sciences
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Economics
Health Care Sciences & Services
Health Policy & Services
Business & Economics
behavioral economics
free-riding
influenza
online experiments
social norms
vaccines
DOUBLE-HURDLE MODEL
SOCIAL NORMS
HERD-IMMUNITY
CARE WORKERS
PREDICTORS
INTERVENTIONS
BEHAVIOR
PARENTS
RISK
DETERMINANTS
behavioral economics
free-riding
influenza
online experiments
social norms
vaccines
Adult
Humans
Influenza Vaccines
Influenza, Human
Intention
Vaccination
Vaccination Coverage
Humans
Influenza Vaccines
Vaccination
Intention
Adult
Influenza, Human
Vaccination Coverage
Health Policy & Services
1117 Public Health and Health Services
1402 Applied Economics
1403 Econometrics
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2022-01-06