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  4. May 2020
  5. Community-Based Crisis Response: Evidence from Sierra Leone's Ebola Outbreak

AEA Papers and Proceedings

ISSN 2574-0768 (Print) | ISSN 2574-0776 (Online)

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Community-Based Crisis Response: Evidence from Sierra Leone's Ebola Outbreak

  • Darin Christensen
  • Oeindrila Dube
  • Johannes Haushofer
  • Bilal Siddiqi
  • Maarten Voors
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 110, May 2020
(pp. 260–64)
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Abstract

Postmortems on the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa suggest that effective community engagement helped slow transmission by encouraging people to come forward and be tested. We evaluate the impact of Community Care Centers: a new crisis response model designed to allay fears about western medical care and, thus, encourage early reporting, isolation, and treatment. We employ new panel data on reported Ebola cases and a difference-in-difference design and find that Community Care Centers dramatically increased reporting, potentially reducing the spread of Ebola. Our results highlight how community-based efforts to increase confidence in health systems can be critical for crisis management.

Citation

Christensen, Darin, Oeindrila Dube, Johannes Haushofer, Bilal Siddiqi, and Maarten Voors. 2020. "Community-Based Crisis Response: Evidence from Sierra Leone's Ebola Outbreak." AEA Papers and Proceedings 110: 260–64. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20201015

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • H12 Crisis Management
  • I12 Health Behavior
  • I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
  • O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration