The Good Outcomes of Bad News. A Randomized Field Experiment on Formatting Breast Cancer Screening Invitations

Last registered on April 09, 2018
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Good Outcomes of Bad News. A Randomized Field Experiment on Formatting Breast Cancer Screening Invitations
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002878
Initial registration date
April 09, 2018

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 09, 2018, 3:24 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Italy
Region
Sicily

Primary Investigator

Name
marco bertoni
Affiliation
University of Padova
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Silvana Robone
PI Affiliation
University of Varese Insubria
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Luca Corazzini
PI Affiliation
University of Venice
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2017-01-23
End date
2017-04-01
Keywords
Health
Additional Keywords
screening, breast cancer, randomized field experiment, framing, information disclosure, nudging.
JEL code(s)
C93, H51, I11, I18.
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We ran a randomized field experiment to ascertain whether a costless manipulation of the informational content (restricted or enhanced information) and the framing (gain or loss framing) of the invitation letter to the breast cancer screening program of the Province of Messina (Sicily) affects the take-up rate.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
bertoni, marco, Luca Corazzini and Silvana Robone. 2018. "The Good Outcomes of Bad News. A Randomized Field Experiment on Formatting Breast Cancer Screening Invitations ." AEA RCT Registry. April 09. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2878-1.0
Former Citation
bertoni, marco, Luca Corazzini and Silvana Robone. 2018. "The Good Outcomes of Bad News. A Randomized Field Experiment on Formatting Breast Cancer Screening Invitations ." AEA RCT Registry. April 09. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2878/history/27827
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We ran a population-level randomized field experiment to ascertain whether a costless manipulation of the informational content (restricted or enhanced information) and the framing (gain or loss framing) of the invitation letter to the national breast cancer screening program affects the take-up rate.
Intervention Start Date
2017-02-13
Intervention End Date
2017-03-19

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Screening take-up
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Our outcome is a dummy for whether women choose to take part in the breast screening programme. The information is obtaiend from administrative records of ASP Messina.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We randomly assign women enrolled in the breast cancer screening program to receive a different invitation letter. There are 5 treatment groups: baseline letter with no information about the consequences of breast cancer screening for women's health, letter with restricted positively framed information, restricted negatively framed information, enhanced positively framed information, enhanced negatively framed information.
Experimental Design Details
To experimentally assign women to the different treatment groups, we make use of the random allocation of subjects in the Messina screening program based on the date of having the mammography. Every year, eligible women are invited to have a mammography at the health care center serving the health district of residence. There are five health care centers in the Province, serving eight health districts; annually these health care centers offer sufficient mammography appointment slots for the target population. Slots are distributed throughout the year and the LHA invites eligible women to have a mammography on an available date. Importantly for our purposes, patients are randomly assigned to screening dates by the LHA computer system. Our manipulations affected women invited for screening during the 7th to 11th week of 2017, the dates being from February 13 to March 19. We sent a different invitation letter to women for each week.
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer of the ASP Messina
Randomization Unit
Individual.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Close to 6000 individuals allocated to 5 treatment groups
Sample size: planned number of observations
Close to 6000 individuals allocated to 5 treatment groups
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Subjects are evenly distributed among the 5 treatment arms, leading to close to 1,200 observations per group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethical Committee of the Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
IRB Approval Date
2017-11-14
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
March 19, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
March 19, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
6194 women
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
6194 women
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Subjects are evenly distributed across treatment arms (i.e., there are close to 1,240 subjects per group).
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
Citation
The good outcomes of bad news. A randomized field experiment on formatting breast cancer screening invitations. Joint with Luca Corazzini and Silvana Robone. HEDG Discussion Paper 17/27, November 2017.
URL
https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/hedg/workingpapers/1727.pdf

Reports & Other Materials