Ada González-Torres
Ben-Gurion University

Ada González-Torres is an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Ben-Gurion University. Her main fields are in development economics and political economy. She is also interested in economic history and public health. In her research she studies social aspects of epidemic outbreaks, causes and consequences of civil violence. Her research also evolves around the role of trust, social norms, and of information in affecting development outcomes, including health, labor conditions or violence. She holds a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute in Florence and she spent the last three years of her doctorate at the University of California Berkeley as a Visiting Research Scholar.

Local Media and the Spread of Epidemics:
Evidence from the Ebola outbreak in Guinea 

Abstract:
I study the causal effect of media on the spread of disease, using original data from the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, and quasi-random variation in radio signal reception by distinct media outlets and timing of public health campaigns. Greater access to local radios led to an earlier drop and less infected cases, compared to places with non-local radios. Consistent with a mechanism of coordination in cultural practices, impacts are driven by greater access to radios, accompanied by changing social resistance, treatment uptake and burial practices, but there is no effect on actions that entail no social cost, such as handwashing.
 

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