Table 3:

RDD estimates-Effect of the referral letter on pathways for changing blood pressure during 2013-17

Specifications	Effects	Std. errors	P-values	OB-	OB+	N-	N+
	Pathways 1: Health Behaviors
	A. Extra salt to plate
Linear	−0.127	0.134	0.345	12.38	21.06	136	117
Linear with controls	−0.130	0.131	0.322	12.70	23.50	133	122
	B. Consume sweet drinks
Linear	0.119	0.111	0.282	20.95	14.69	260	91
Linear with controls	0.127	0.110	0.248	21.94	14.10	275	90
C. Total number of teaspoons of sugar used in teal coffee per day
Linear	0.539	0.485	0.267	14.782	23.754	163	123
Linear with controls	0.489	0.457	0.285	14.174	21.616	160	116
	D. Change in zveekly MET score
Linear	−60.971	39.124	0.119	12.23	16.43	134	101
Linear with controls	−56.842	37.02	0.125	12.80	17.61	132	102
	Pathways 2: Knowledge
	A. Know about HBP
Linear	−0.025	0.100	0.800	25.03	16.06	336	102
Linear with controls	−0.050	0.102	0.628	24.58	15.70	320	95
	B. Know symptoms
Linear	0.042	0.123	0.729	20.246	13.462	260	87
Linear with controls	0.019	0.127	0.881	18.339	13.621	214	86
	C. Know about treatment
Linear	−0.032	0.121	0.792	18.04	13.72	218	87
Linear with controls	−0.104	0.124	0.400	16.74	12.24	188	82

Notes: The table shows estimates of the effect of receiving a referral card in 2013 on diet and knowledge about hypertension in 2017 using a regression discontinuity design. Extra salt to plate and consumption of sweet drinks are dummies. The knowledge measures are dummies based on whether they know what high blood pressure is, whether they are able to name at least one of its symptoms and whether they now that having high blood pressure required life-long treatment. All these specifications use triangular weights and first order local polynomials. OB- and OB+ represent the optimal bandwidths below and above the cutoffs, respectively. N- and N+ represent the number of observations included in the optimal bandwidths below and above the cutoffs, respectively. We use a Mean Square Error (MSE) optimal bandwidth selector. Specifications with controls includes a sex dummy, age and region dummies. “MET” stands for metabolic equivalent of task and it is a measure of physical activity.

^*p < 0.1,

^**p < 0.05,

^***p < 0.01.