Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities
通过肯尼亚学校驱虫项目的随机评估，发现学校驱虫治疗不仅减少了治疗学校学生的缺勤率，还通过降低疾病传播为未治疗儿童带来健康和教育参与的外部收益，但未发现对考试成绩有显著改善。
Intestinal helminths-including hookworm, roundworm, whipworm, and schistosomiasis-infect more than one-quarter of the world's population. Studies in which medical treatment is randomized at the individual level potentially doubly underestimate the benefits of treatment, missing externality benefits to the comparison group from reduced disease transmission, and therefore also underestimating benefits for the treatment group. We evaluate a Kenyan project in which school-based mass treatment with deworming drugs was randomly phased into schools, rather than to individuals, allowing estimation of overall program effects. The program reduced school absenteeism in treatment schools by one-quarter, and was far cheaper than alternative ways of boosting school participation. Deworming substantially improved health and school participation among untreated children in both treatment schools and neighboring schools, and these externalities are large enough to justify fully subsidizing treatment. Yet we do not find evidence that deworming improved academic test scores. Copyright Econometric Society 2004.