Lessons for Covid-19 Vaccination from Eight Federal Government Direct Communication Evaluations

Behavioral Science & Policy, Forthcoming

26 Pages Posted: 28 Dec 2021

See all articles by Heather Kappes

Heather Kappes

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Management; Office of Evaluation Sciences, United States General Services Administration

Mattie Toma

University of Warwick

Rekha Balu

MDRC

Russell Burnett

Office of Evaluation Sciences, U.S. General Services Administration; U.S. Department of Justice

Nuole Chen

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Rebecca A. Johnson

Dartmouth College

Jessica Leight

Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Saad B. Omer

Yale University - Institute for Global Health

Elana Safran

Office of Evaluation Sciences, U.S. General Services Administration

Mary Steffel

Northeastern University

Kris-Stella Trump

University of Memphis

David Yokum

The Policy Lab at Brown University

Pompa Debroy

U.S. General Services Administration; Office of Evaluation Sciences, U.S. General Services Administration

Date Written: December 3, 2021

Abstract

We discuss eight randomized evaluations intended to increase vaccination uptake conducted by the US General Services Administration’s Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES). These evaluations had a median sample size of 55,000, deployed a variety of behaviorally-informed direct communications, and used administrative data to measure vaccination uptake. The confidence interval from an internal meta-analysis shows changes in vaccination rates ranging from -0.004 to 0.394 percentage points. Two studies yielded statistically significant increases, of 0.59 and 0.16 percentage points. The other six were not statistically significant, although the studies were powered to detect effect sizes in line with published research. This work highlights the likely effects of government communications and demonstrates the value of conducting rapid evaluations to support COVID-19 vaccination efforts.

Note:
Funding Information: There is no funding information to report.

Declaration of Interests: There are no competing interests to report.

Ethics Approval Statement: As this project constitutes a meta-analysis of existing evaluations and no primary human subjects research, we did not request IRB approval.

Keywords: vaccination, randomized controlled trial, communications, government evaluation

Suggested Citation

Kappes, Heather and Toma, Mattie and Balu, Rekha and Burnett, Russell and Chen, Nuole and Johnson, Rebecca A. and Leight, Jessica and Omer, Saad B. and Safran, Elana and Steffel, Mary and Trump, Kris-Stella and Yokum, David and Debroy, Pompa, Lessons for Covid-19 Vaccination from Eight Federal Government Direct Communication Evaluations (December 3, 2021). Behavioral Science & Policy, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3967610 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3967610

Heather Kappes

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Management ( email )

United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.lse.ac.uk/management/people/hkappes.aspx

Office of Evaluation Sciences, United States General Services Administration ( email )

1800 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20405
United States

Mattie Toma

University of Warwick ( email )

Gibbet Hill Rd.
Coventry, CV4 8UW
United Kingdom

Rekha Balu

MDRC ( email )

200 Vesey Street
New York, NY 10281
United States

Russell Burnett

Office of Evaluation Sciences, U.S. General Services Administration ( email )

1800 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20405
United States

HOME PAGE: http://oes.gsa.gov

U.S. Department of Justice ( email )

United States

Nuole Chen

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ( email )

601 E John St
Champaign, IL Champaign 61820
United States

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( email )

30 Wadsworth Street (Rm 470)
Cambridge, MA 02142
United States

Rebecca A. Johnson

Dartmouth College ( email )

Department of Sociology
Hanover, NH 03755
United States

Jessica Leight

Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ( email )

1201 Eye St, NW,
Washington, DC 20005
United States

Saad B. Omer

Yale University - Institute for Global Health ( email )

Elana Safran

Office of Evaluation Sciences, U.S. General Services Administration ( email )

1800 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20405
United States
202-322-5485 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://oes.gsa.gov/

Mary Steffel

Northeastern University ( email )

220 B RP
Boston, MA 02115
United States

Kris-Stella Trump

University of Memphis ( email )

Memphis, TN 38152
Memphis, TN usa 38152-3370
United States

David Yokum

The Policy Lab at Brown University ( email )

225 Dyer Street
5th Floor
Providence, RI 02912
United States

Pompa Debroy (Contact Author)

U.S. General Services Administration ( email )

1800 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20405
United States

Office of Evaluation Sciences, U.S. General Services Administration ( email )

1800 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20405
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
280
Abstract Views
1,666
Rank
198,618
PlumX Metrics