英文關鍵字：
media coverage;epidemic control;difference-in-differences;H1N1 vaccine;Chih-Liang Yang
期刊及卷期：
Taiwan Economic Review, 第47卷, 第1期, 第127-155(TSSCI)頁
摘要：
To prevent the spread of the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, the Taiwanese government launched a large-scale H1N1 vaccination campaign. However, the death of ＂Liu Xiaodi＂ after vaccination triggered a pan-green media questioning of the safety of the vaccine. In response, Minister of Health, Dr. Yang, criticized irresponsible media reports that would endanger Taiwanese heath. Because vaccines for preschool children require two doses, with a four-week gap, to ensure sufficient protection, we thus employed the National Health Insurance dataset to obtain vaccination records for children aged between 1 and 6, and used the second dose vaccination rate (after the Liu Xiaodi incident) to investigate the impact of the media effect. Given that the pan-green media has a higher rating in agriculture counties, we also employ the DD method to compare the second dose rate of children covered by public employee insurance and farmer insurance. Our estimates indicate a large reduction in the second dose vaccination rate, ranging from 12% to 22%. Results of DD estimation also confirms the presence of spillover effects. Finally, the reduction of the vaccination rate significantly decreases, not increases, the hospital admission rate due to H1N1. We suspect that the media coverage unexpectedly lowered the H1N1 infection rate.
