On Monday, May 17 2021, 16:00 - 17:30, Sophie Guthmuller (Vienna University of Economics and Business) will present:
The Impact of Breast Cancer Organised Screening Programmes on Uptake, Inequality, and Mortality
We study the impact of Organised Screening Programmes (OSP) for Breast Cancer in Europe on mammography uptake, inequality, and mortality. When an OSP is in place, all women within a certainage group receive, every two years, an invitation for free breast screening. To identify the causal impact of this invitation, we exploit the heterogeneity across European regions in the availability of OSP and in the age eligibility across regions with OSP. Our analysis is based on three data sources: (1) regional information on OSP, (2) individual information on mammography uptake, socioeconomic characteristics, health, and lifestyle related risk factors of women in 21 European countries, and (3) cancer registry data on breast cancer incidence, and mortality. We find new evidence that screening increases by more than 30 percentage points when women are invited. First results from the heterogeneity analysis show that women that respond to the invitation are those at higher risk of developing cancer and those with low preventive healthcare habits. Thus, OSP with a personal invitation manage to reach asymptomatic women at higher risk of developing cancer and with low preventive healthcare habits, i.e. women that are less likely to go for a mammography otherwise. Further analyses will investigate the impact of OSP on socioeconomic inequalities, breast cancer incidence, and mortality.
Room: Due to the current situation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the talk will be held in a virtual seminar room. For more information click here.
On Monday, May 10 2021, 16:00 - 17:30, Michael Haylock (University of Tübingen) will present:
How to Improve the Availability of Unrelated Stem Cell Donors: Evidence from a Major Donor Registry
Understanding how to effectively cope with the availability of hematopoietic stem cell donors for confirmatory typing is important for stem cell donor registries and researchers alike. The uncertain time horizon from enrolling to actually becoming a donor is a particular challenge for registries. This paper evaluates the impact of a set of initiatives aimed at improving stem cell collections and CT availability of donors at DKMS, one of the largest registries worldwide.
A subset of registered donors receive invitation letters to initiatives prior to an actual request for a stem cell donation. Donor ``retyping'' initiatives asked for a blood sample and more medical information, with a specific patient in the background (``patient-centered'' retyping) or without. Donor ``retention'' initiatives asked for notification of longer absence from home, as a commitment device. Exploiting the near-random allocation of initiatives to donors based on observable medical characteristics, we find evidence that the initiatives enhance the availability of donors when they receive an actual request. Patient-centered retyping initiatives are associated with a 5.9 percentage-point increase in availability on average, 5.0 percentage points higher than non-patient related initiatives. Retention initiatives with a ``team'' framing increase availability by 1.2 percentage points, which is 2.0 percentage points larger than a neutral frame that has a marginally negative impact. Participation in any of the initiatives predicts subsequent donor availability, whereas non-participation predicts unavailability only in retention initiatives. We discuss the implications of our findings for stem-cell donor registries.
Room: Due to the current situation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the talk will be held in a virtual seminar room. For more information click here.
On Monday, May 3 2021, 16:00 - 17:30, Kitt Carpenter (Vanderbilt) will present:
Bad Lighting: Effects of Youth Indoor Tanning Prohibitions
Indoor tanning beds (ITBs) emit harmful UV light at high intensity and have been classified as carcinogenic to humans by the World Health Organization since 2009. In that same year, more one in three white high school girls reported using an indoor tanning bed in the prior year; by 2019 that figure had fallen to fewer than one in ten. We are the first to study the role of state laws prohibiting youths from indoor tanning on many tanning-related outcomes using difference-in-differences models and staggered adoption of ITB prohibitions across states. We find that youth ITB prohibitions reduced search intensity for tanning-related information and reduced self-reported indoor tanning participation and intensity among teen girls. We also find that youth ITB prohibitions significantly reduced the size of the indoor tanning market by increasing tanning salon closures and reducing tanning salon sales. We find little evidence of unintended consequences on other youth risky behaviors, and in fact we find evidence that youth ITB prohibitions increase sun protective behaviors. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of youth ITB prohibitions and provide novel evidence on how public health policies affect private market outcomes.
Room: Due to the current situation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the talk will be held in a virtual seminar room. For more information click here.
