IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp11942.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Leveraging Patients' Social Networks to Overcome Tuberculosis Underdetection: A Field Experiment in India

Author

Listed:
  • Goldberg, Jessica

    (University of Maryland)

  • Macis, Mario

    (The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School)

  • Chintagunta, Pradeep

    (University of Chicago)

Abstract

Peer referrals are a common strategy for addressing asymmetric information in contexts such as the labor market. They could be especially valuable for increasing testing and treatment of infectious diseases, where peers may have advantages over health workers in both identifying new patients and providing them credible information, but they are rare in that context. In an experiment with 3,182 patients at 128 tuberculosis (TB) treatment centers in India, we find peers are indeed more effective than health workers in bringing in new suspects for testing, and low-cost incentives of about $US 3 per referral considerably increase the probability that current patients make referrals that result in the testing of new symptomatics and the identification of new TB cases. Peer outreach identifies new TB cases at 25%-35% of the cost of outreach by health workers and can be a valuable tool in combating infectious disease.

Suggested Citation

  • Goldberg, Jessica & Macis, Mario & Chintagunta, Pradeep, 2018. "Leveraging Patients' Social Networks to Overcome Tuberculosis Underdetection: A Field Experiment in India," IZA Discussion Papers 11942, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11942
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp11942.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lori Beaman & Jeremy Magruder, 2012. "Who Gets the Job Referral? Evidence from a Social Networks Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3574-3593, December.
    2. Kugler, Adriana D., 2003. "Employee referrals and efficiency wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(5), pages 531-556, October.
    3. Balat, Jorge & Papageorge, Nicholas W. & Qayyum, Shaiza, 2017. "Positively Aware? Conflicting Expert Reviews and Demand for Medical Treatment," IZA Discussion Papers 10919, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. David Godes & Dina Mayzlin, 2009. "Firm-Created Word-of-Mouth Communication: Evidence from a Field Test," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 721-739, 07-08.
    5. Emily Oster & Rebecca Thornton, 2012. "Determinants Of Technology Adoption: Peer Effects In Menstrual Cup Take-Up," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(6), pages 1263-1293, December.
    6. Alan T. Sorensen, 2006. "Social learning and health plan choice," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 929-945, December.
    7. Pope, Devin G., 2009. "Reacting to rankings: Evidence from "America's Best Hospitals"," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1154-1165, December.
    8. Stephen V. Burks & Bo Cowgill & Mitchell Hoffman & Michael Housman, 2015. "The Value of Hiring through Employee Referrals," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 805-839.
    9. Miller, Grant & Luo, Renfu & Zhang, Linxiu & Sylvia, Sean & Shi, Yaojiang & Foo, Patricia & Zhao, Qiran & Martorell, Reynaldo & Medina, Alexis & Rozelle, Scott, 2012. "Effectiveness of provider incentives for anaemia reduction in rural China: a cluster randomised trial," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 345, pages 1-10.
    10. Lori Beaman & Niall Keleher & Jeremy Magruder, 2018. "Do Job Networks Disadvantage Women? Evidence from a Recruitment Experiment in Malawi," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 121-157.
    11. Alan T. Sorensen, 2006. "Social learning and health plan choice," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 929-945, December.
    12. Michael Kremer & Edward Miguel & Rebecca Thornton, 2009. "Incentives to Learn," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(3), pages 437-456, August.
    13. Shing-Yi Wang, 2013. "Marriage Networks, Nepotism, and Labor Market Outcomes in China," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 91-112, July.
    14. Rebecca L. Thornton, 2008. "The Demand for, and Impact of, Learning HIV Status," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1829-1863, December.
    15. Mitchell Hoffman, 2017. "The value of hiring through employee referrals in developed countries," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 369-369, June.
    16. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    17. Niruparani Charles & Beena Thomas & Basilea Watson & Raja Sakthivel M. & Chandrasekeran V. & Fraser Wares, 2010. "Care Seeking Behavior of Chest Symptomatics: A Community Based Study Done in South India after the Implementation of the RNTCP," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(9), pages 1-6, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lnu,Anukriti & Herrera-Almanza,Catalina & Karra,Mahesh Venkat, 2022. "Bring a Friend : Strengthening Women’s Social Networks and Reproductive Autonomy in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10107, The World Bank.
    2. Rubli, Adrian, 2023. "Trade-offs between access and quality in healthcare: Evidence from retail clinics in Mexico," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jessica Goldberg & Mario Macis & Pradeep Chintagunta, 2023. "Incentivized Peer Referrals for Tuberculosis Screening: Evidence from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 259-291, January.
    2. Osman, Adam & Speer, Jamin D. & Weaver, Andrew, 2022. "Connections, Referrals, and Hiring Outcomes: Evidence from an Egyptian Establishment Survey," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 342-355.
    3. Afridi, Farzana & Dhillon, Amrita, 2022. "Social Networks and the Labour Market," IZA Discussion Papers 15774, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Fafchamps, Marcel & Islam, Asad & Malek, Mohammad Abdul & Pakrashi, Debayan, 2020. "Can referral improve targeting? Evidence from an agricultural training experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    5. Dariel, Aurelie & Riedl, Arno & Siegenthaler, Simon, 2021. "Referral hiring and wage formation in a market with adverse selection," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 109-130.
    6. Arimoto, Yutaka & Machikita, Tomohiro & Tsubota, Kenmei, 2018. "Broker versus social networks in adverse working conditions: cross-sectional evidence from Cambodian migrants in Thailand," IDE Discussion Papers 686, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    7. Dariel, Aurelie & Riedl, Arno & Siegenthaler, Simon, 2019. "Hiring Through Referrals in a Labor Market with Adverse Selection," Research Memorandum 009, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    8. Amanda Pallais & Emily Glassberg Sands, 2015. "Why the Referential Treatment: Evidence from Field Experiments on Referrals," NBER Working Papers 21357, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Alfredo Burlando & Pradeep Chintagunta & Jessica Goldberg & Melissa Graboyes & Peter Hangoma & Dean Karlan & Mario Macis & Silvia Prina, 2022. "Passing the Message: Peer Outreach about COVID-19 Precautions in Zambia," NBER Working Papers 30414, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Engström, Per & Forsell, Eskil, 2018. "Demand effects of consumers’ stated and revealed preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 43-61.
    11. Patacchini, Eleonora & Barwick, Panle Jia & Liu, Yanyan & Wu, Qi, 2019. "Information, Mobile Communication, and Referral Effects," CEPR Discussion Papers 13786, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Amedeo Piolatto, 2015. "Online booking and information: competition and welfare consequences of review aggregators," Working Papers 2015/11, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    13. Grigolon, Laura & Lasio, Laura, 2023. "Biased beliefs and stigma as barriers to treatment and innovation adoption," CEPR Discussion Papers 17938, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Martin Abel & Rulof Burger & Patrizio Piraino, 2017. "The value of reference letters," Working Papers 06/2017, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    15. Berardi, Nicoletta & Lalanne, Marie & Seabright, Paul, 2018. "Professional networks and their coevolution with executive careers: Evidence from North America and Europe," SAFE Working Paper Series 243, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    16. Mitchell Hoffman, 2017. "The value of hiring through employee referrals in developed countries," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 369-369, June.
    17. Dhillon, Amrita & Peeters, Ronald & Bartrum, Oliver & Yüksel, Ayşe Müge, 2020. "Hiring an employee’s friends is good for business: Overcoming moral hazard with social networks," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    18. Deguilhem, Thibaud & Berrou, Jean-Philippe & Combarnous, François, 2017. "Using your ties to get a worse job? The differential effects of social networks on quality of employment: Evidence from Colombia," MPRA Paper 78628, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Thibaud Deguilhem & Jean-Philippe Berrou & François Combarnous, 2019. "Using your ties to get a worse job? The differential effects of social networks on quality of employment in Colombia," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(4), pages 493-522, October.
    20. Stefano Caria & Simon Franklin & Marc Witte, 2023. "Searching with Friends," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(4), pages 887-922.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tuberculosis; referrals; social networks; case finding; incentives; India; health;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11942. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.