Information avoidance and medical screening: A field experiment in China
Will individuals, especially high-risk individuals, avoid a disease test because of information avoidance? We conduct a field experiment to investigate this issue. We vary the price of a diabetes test (price experiment) and offer both a diabetes test and a cancer test (disease experiment) after elic...
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Main Authors: | , , , |
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Format: | text |
Language: | English |
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Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
2021
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Online Access: | https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6729 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/7728/viewcontent/Information_Avoidance_Med_Screen_av.pdf |
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Institution: | Singapore Management University |
Language: | English |
Summary: | Will individuals, especially high-risk individuals, avoid a disease test because of information avoidance? We conduct a field experiment to investigate this issue. We vary the price of a diabetes test (price experiment) and offer both a diabetes test and a cancer test (disease experiment) after eliciting participants’ subjective beliefs about their disease risk. We find evidence that, first, some people avoid the test even when there is neither a monetary nor a transaction cost, and second, both low- and high-risk individuals select out of the test as the price increases. We explain our findings using three classes of models of anticipatory utility. |
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