Government Recommendations and Health Behaviors: Evidence from Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines

Churchill is an Assistant Professor at American University and a Faculty Research Fellow at NBER (bchurchill@american.edu). Lawler is an Associate Professor at the University of Georgia and a Research Associate at NBER (emily.lawler@uga.edu). We thank Scott Barkowski, Emily Battaglia, Lindsey Bullinger, Amy Davidoff, Chloe East, Danea Horn, Mireille Jacobson, Michelle Marcus, Cici McNamara, Aparna Soni, Bing Yang Tan, Barton Willage; seminar participants at American University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Tufts University, University of Georgia, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Pittsburgh; and participants at the 2022 Southern Economic Association annual meeting, the 2023 American Society of Health Economics annual meeting, the Electronic Health Economics Colloquium, and the DC Health Economics Seminar Series for helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. We are particularly grateful to Lars Grimm, Dan Golden, and Mike Simanowith for assistance with the American College of Radiology’s National Mammography Database. The content does not represent the views of the American College of Radiology. Some of the results in this paper are based on restricted-use data. Readers interested in obtaining access can contact the authors. All interpretations, errors, and omissions are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.