Investing in safe deliveries: correcting misperceived social norms to provide more generous maternity grants in rural Zambia

Last registered on March 10, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Investing in safe deliveries: correcting misperceived social norms to provide more generous maternity grants in rural Zambia
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010987
Initial registration date
February 27, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
March 10, 2023, 3:15 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of California, Berkeley

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Chr. Michelsen Institute; University of Zambia

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2022-11-23
End date
2024-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This document describes the pre-analysis plan for a randomized experiment encouraging savings groups in rural Zambia to provide one-time maternity grants to pregnant women to encourage them to deliver at a health facility. We randomize savings groups into a Treatment and Control arm. In the Control arm, there is no intervention while in the Treatment arm we encourage savings group to give maternity grants to pregnant women. The Treatment arm is further randomized to three sub-treatments: 1) Discussion, 2) Private, and 3) Public where we experimentally vary whether or not we reveal the average preferred amount of group members, and whether we reveal this privately or publicly. At Baseline, we administer a survey to all savings group members in the Treatment arm to measure demographics, social preferences, and beliefs around pregnancy, delivery, and the role of savings groups in supporting pregnant women. Afterwards, savings group members convene to discuss and decide on the amount of the maternity grant to be provided. In both the Treatment and Control arms, we will conduct phone follow-up interviews over the 18-months period with savings group members who become pregnant and give birth to examine facility delivery and other downstream health outcomes. This document describes our research design and empirical strategy. We define our primary and secondary outcome variables and main regression specifications. However, we anticipate that we will carry out additional analyses beyond those included in the document. This document is therefore not meant to preclude additional analyses.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Chiu, Calvin and Peter Hangoma. 2023. "Investing in safe deliveries: correcting misperceived social norms to provide more generous maternity grants in rural Zambia." AEA RCT Registry. March 10. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10987-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
See Section 2.3 of Pre-Analysis Plan for details
Intervention Start Date
2022-11-23
Intervention End Date
2023-02-28

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Facility delivery
2. Value of maternity grant
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
See Section 3 of Pre-Analysis Plan for details

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will conducted a two-arm cluster randomized trial randomizing savings groups into Treatment (maternity grants) and Control (no intervention). In the Treatment arm, savings groups will be further randomized into three sub-treatment arms: Discussion, Private and Public.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Savings group
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
480 savings groups
Sample size: planned number of observations
1440 savings group members/spouses who give birth over the study period (approximately 3 births per savings group)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
240 savings groups control; 240 savings groups treatment - i) 80 groups Discussion; ii) 80 groups Private; iii) 80 groups Public (sub-treatment arms)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Zambia Biomedical Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2022-06-13
IRB Approval Number
REF.NO.2832-2022
IRB Name
University of California, Berkeley Committee for Protection of Human Subjects (CPHS)
IRB Approval Date
2022-07-28
IRB Approval Number
2020-08-13533
Analysis Plan

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