%0 Report
        %A Giulietti, Corrado
%A Vlassopoulos, Michael
%A Zenou, Yves
        %T When Reality Bites: Local Deaths and Vaccine Take-up
        %D 2022
        %8 2022 Jul
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 15462
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp15462
        %X We investigate whether COVID-19 deaths that occurred before vaccination rollouts impact subsequent vaccination take-up. We use data on local vaccination rates and COVID-19-related deaths from England measured at high geographic granularity. We find that vaccination take-up as of November 2021 is positively associated with pre-vaccine COVID-19-related deaths, controlling for demographic, economic, and health-related characteristics of the localities, while including geographic fixed effects. In addition, the share of ethnic minorities in a locality is negatively associated with vaccination rates, and localities with a larger share of ethnic minorities increase their vaccination rates if they are exposed to more COVID-related-deaths. Further evidence on vaccination intention at the individual level from a representative sample corroborates these patterns. Overall, our evidence suggests that social proximity to victims of the disease triggers a desire to take protective measures against it.
        %K vaccination hesitancy
%K COVID-19
%K social interactions
%K information
%K behavior change