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  2. ASSA Annual Meeting
  3. 2021
  4. Preliminary Program
  5. Topics on Race and Health Economics
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Topics on Race and Health Economics

Paper Session

Monday, Jan. 4, 2021 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)

Hosted By: Health Economics Research Organization
  • Chair: Marcella Alsan, Harvard University

Black Lives Matter Protests, Social Distancing and COVID-19

Dhaval Dave
,
Bentley University
Andrew Friedson
,
University of Colorado-Denver
Kyutaro Matsuzawa
,
San Diego State University
Joseph Sabia
,
San Diego State University
Samuel Safford
,
San Diego State University

Abstract

Sparked by the killing of George Floyd in police custody, the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests have brought a new wave of attention to the issue of inequality within criminal justice. However, many public health officials have warned that mass protests could lead to a reduction in social distancing behavior, spurring a resurgence of COVID-19. This study uses newly collected data on protests in 315 of the largest U.S. cities to estimate the impacts of mass protests on social distancing and COVID-19 case growth. Event-study analyses provide strong evidence that net stay-at-home behavior increased following protest onset, consistent with the hypothesis that non-protesters’ behavior was substantially affected by urban protests. This effect was not fully explained by the imposition of city curfews. Estimated effects were generally larger for persistent protests and those accompanied by media reports of violence. Furthermore, we find no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case growth during the more than three weeks following protest onset. We conclude that predictions of broad negative public health consequences of Black Lives Matter protests were far too narrowly conceived.

Information Campaigns to Increase Vaccine Demand Among Black Men

Marcella Alsan
,
Harvard University
Sarah Eichmeyer
,
Stanford University

Abstract

Take-up of preventive health care is often far from complete, even when it is freely available and widely recommended by public health officials. Social proximity to and trust in health care providers may facilitate uptake of preventive health care. In this field experiment, we test how race concordance and empathetic messages of physician-actors influence attitudes, beliefs, valuations and take-up of seasonal flu vaccination among Black men of low SES in the US - a demographic group with very low take-up of the flu vaccine. We expose participants recruited online to infomercials displaying physician-actors ("messengers") who present information about the flu vaccine, randomly varying the script and the race of the messenger. We then survey participants about their beliefs and attitudes towards the flu vaccine, and provide them with a coupon for a free flu shot, whose redemption we track.

The Federal Effort to Desegregate Southern Hospitals and the Black-White Infant Mortality Gap

D. Mark Anderson
,
Montana State University
Kerwin Kofi Charles
,
Yale University
Daniel I. Rees
,
University of Colorado Denver and NBER

Abstract

In 1966, Southern hospitals were barred from participating in Medicare unless they discontinued their long-standing practice of racial segregation. Using data from five Deep South states and exploiting county-level variation in Medicare certification dates, we find that gaining access to an ostensibly integrated hospital had no effect on the Black-White infant mortality gap, although it may have discouraged small numbers of Black mothers from giving birth at home attended by a midwife. These results are consistent with descriptions of the federal hospital desegregation campaign as producing only cosmetic changes and illustrate the limits of anti-discrimination policies imposed upon reluctant actors.
Discussant(s)
Louis-Philippe Beland
,
Carleton University
Marianne Wanamaker
,
University of Tennessee
Mackenzie Alston
,
Florida State University
JEL Classifications
  • I1 - Health