Events

The Health Exchange is an inclusive and intellectually stimulating space for knowledge exchange across disciplines, sectors and career stages. Through the series, speakers can share emerging, ongoing and established work, engage in thoughtful discussion, receive constructive feedback, and make new connections.

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  The Health Exchange – Christine Valente

  Learning about Others, Not Oneself: Experimental Evidence on Pregnancy Risk
  (joint with Grant Miller and Aureo de Paula)

  1-2pm on Wednesday 28 October 2026
  Online via Zoom, and in-person on LSE Campus (COW 1.11)

  Why might we accept the evidence, but think it doesn’t apply to us?
  Growing evidence shows that beliefs often diverge from statistical evidence and that these divergences shape behaviour. Improving belief accuracy may therefore be an important policy lever across a range of domains. Yet evidence on the effects of information interventions is mixed, and we know relatively little about why information changes some beliefs and behaviours but not others. This question is addressed using a randomised information intervention targeting a single belief: the risk of pregnancy without contraception.

  Speaker:
  Christine Valente is a Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol, J-PAL Research Affiliate, IFS Research Associate and IZA@LISER Research Fellow. She is an applied microeconomist studying household decision-making, human capital investments, and social protection in low-income settings. Her research examines the factors shaping household choices and how public policy can influence them. She has published her work in, among others, the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Health Economics and Journal of Econometrics.

  This session will take place in-person at COW 1.11 and online via Zoom. Register here.

  For in-person attendance, light refreshments will be available from 12.45 pm

Health Policy events archive