Eric G. Zhou

Job market paper: 

The Impact of COVID-19 Vaccines on the Health and Educational Outcomes of Public School Students in New York City
(Presented at APHA, APPAM, 2023; Available upon request due to data restrictions)

Abstract: COVID-19 vaccines emerged as a critical public health intervention for keeping society safe and open, notably demonstrated in clinical trials to show high effectiveness in protection from severe outcomes. However, the real-world impact of vaccinations beyond experimental settings remains less clear. The study examines the effects of vaccines on the health and educational outcomes among public school students in New York City during the 2021-2022 school year, when schools returned to in-person instruction. Combining a wide variety of administrative, clinical and monitoring data sources, we constructed a dataset linking student information to test scores, Medicaid claims, and neighborhood-level factors. Employing a difference-in-differences design, we leveraged the natural experiment of the age-based eligibility rule that granted one of two closely aged groups vaccine eligibility almost 6 months earlier. Among the 54,538 students with varied eligibility due to their birth month, early COVID-19 vaccine eligibility increased the annual full vaccination rate by 24 percentage points and days spent fully vaccinated by 60.3 days. COVID-19 vaccine uptake increased standardized math scores, and reduced outpatient visits and the likelihood of COVID-19 infections. Longitudinal analysis reveals that the protective effects of vaccines persisted over time and were most pronounced during periods of high community infection rates. While the effects of vaccines vary by race, ethnicity and borough of residence, our study provides evidence that COVID-19 vaccines offer substantial benefits in a school setting and suggests that age-based vaccine distribution could lead to persistent, long-term disparities in vaccine uptake.

Publications:
Analysis of School-Level Vaccination Rates by Race, Ethnicity, and Geography in New York City, JAMA Network Open, 2022, with Brian Elbel, David Lee, Willy Chen, Sophia Day, Kevin Konty, and Amy Ellen Schwartz

Gentrification and Childhood Obesity: Evidence from NYC Public School Students in Public Housing, Obesity (Silver Spring), 2023, with Brian Elbel and Amy Ellen Schwartz

Working in progress:
The Predictors of Covid Vaccine Uptake of Public School Students in NYC

The Delay of Routine Medical Care and Vaccinations Among Children During the COVID-19 Pandemic