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

Sebastian Gallegos; Benjamin Roseth; Ana Cuesta; Mario Sánchez

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104975

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

Sebastian Gallegos, Benjamin Roseth, Ana Cuesta, Mario Sánchez

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Increasing public service take-up is a critical challenge. We invested in a government-run 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 our digital-system or as-usual with local clinics. Digital encouragements doubled medical visits versus as-usual invitations, and tripled compared to a pure control group (5.5 % versus 1.9 %) over 16 weeks. These large impacts are highly cost-effective, mediated by salience and reduced transactions costs.

Original language	English
Article number	104975
Journal	Journal of Public Economics
Volume	227
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104975
State	Published - Nov 2023
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Administrative barriers
Behavioral economics
Digital government
Economic development
Health behaviors
Public healthcare
Red tape
State capacity
Transaction costs
Women

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104975

Cite this

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

abstract = "Increasing public service take-up is a critical challenge. We invested in a government-run 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 our digital-system or as-usual with local clinics. Digital encouragements doubled medical visits versus as-usual invitations, and tripled compared to a pure control group (5.5 % versus 1.9 %) over 16 weeks. These large impacts are highly cost-effective, mediated by salience and reduced transactions costs.",

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AU - Gallegos, Sebastian

AU - Roseth, Benjamin

AU - Cuesta, Ana

AU - Sánchez, Mario

PY - 2023/11

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AB - Increasing public service take-up is a critical challenge. We invested in a government-run 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 our digital-system or as-usual with local clinics. Digital encouragements doubled medical visits versus as-usual invitations, and tripled compared to a pure control group (5.5 % versus 1.9 %) over 16 weeks. These large impacts are highly cost-effective, mediated by salience and reduced transactions costs.

KW - Administrative barriers

KW - Behavioral economics

KW - Digital government

KW - Economic development

KW - Health behaviors

KW - Public healthcare

KW - Red tape

KW - State capacity

KW - Transaction costs

KW - Women

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

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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