
Australian Health & Human Capital Economics Seminar | Can personalized digital counseling improve consumer search for modern contraceptive methods? by Berk Ozler
Welcome back to the Virtual Australian Health & Human Capital Economics Seminar Series, which goes into its second year. This event is organised by A/Professor Victoria Baranov (UMelb), Dr Sarah Walker (UNSW), Professor Stefanie Schurer (USyd), Dr Rebecca McKibbin (USyd), Professor Adeline Delavande (UTS), and Professor Brenda Gannon (UQ).
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Can personalized digital counseling improve consumer search for modern contraceptive methods?
Presented by
World Bank Development Research Group
Wednesday 7 December
9.00am – 10.00am
Zoom Link
Abstract: Long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) are highly effective in preventing unintended pregnancies, but like many promising modern technologies take-up remains low. This paper analyzes a randomized controlled trial of a personalized digital counseling intervention addressing informational constraints and choice architecture, cross-randomized with discounts for LARCs. The counseling intervention encourages shared decision-making (SDM) using a tablet-based app, which provides a tailored ranking of modern methods to each client according to their elicited needs and preferences. Take-up of LARCs in the status quo regime at full price was 11%, which increased to 28% with discounts. SDM roughly tripled the share of clients adopting a LARC at full price to 35% and discounts had no incremental impact in this group. Consistent with theoretical models of consumer search, SDM clients evaluated more methods, which led to higher adoption rates for second- or lower-ranked LARCs. Our findings suggest that low-cost individualized recommendations can potentially be as effective in increasing unfamiliar technology adoption as providing large subsidies.