American Economic Review: Insights
ISSN 2640-205X (Print) | ISSN 2640-2068 (Online)
Surviving Bad News: Health Information without Treatment Options
American Economic Review: Insights
vol. 7,
no. 1, March 2025
(pp. 1–18)
Abstract
When there is no treatment available for a life-threatening disease, providing personal health information could lead to despair or fatalistic behaviors resulting in negative health outcomes. We document this possibility utilizing an experiment in Malawi that randomized incentives to learn HIV testing results in a context where antiretroviral treatment was not yet available. Six years after the experiment, among HIV-positive individuals, those who learned their status were 23 percentage points less likely to survive than those who did not, with effects persisting after 15 years. Receiving an HIV-positive diagnosis resulted in riskier health behaviors, greater anxiety, and higher discount rates.Citation
Ciancio, Alberto, Fabrice Kämpfen, Hans-Peter Kohler, and Rebecca Thornton. 2025. "Surviving Bad News: Health Information without Treatment Options." American Economic Review: Insights 7 (1): 1–18. DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20240058Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
- D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
- I12 Health Behavior
- I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
- O12 Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development