The effects of health education on health outcomes: Evidence from a natural randomized experiment

This paper estimates the effects of attending medical school on health behavior and health status exploiting that admission to medical school in the Netherlands is determined by a lottery. Because lottery losers are permitted to re-apply, we use the result of the first lottery in which someone participates as instrumental variable. Our results show that health education reduces alcohol intake and being underweight, and seems to reduce smoking. It has, however, no impact on being overweight or obese, or on subjective health status. The effect on the frequency of physical exercise is even negative. This mixed evidence makes it unlikely that the content of education programs explains the education gradient for health. Health education has a large impact on the probability of being registered for donations of organs, suggesting that information provision is a possible channel to raise the supply of organs