Improving hygiene practices in slaughterhouses in Western Kenya

Last registered on December 08, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Improving hygiene practices in slaughterhouses in Western Kenya
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012126
Initial registration date
September 15, 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
September 20, 2023, 10:42 AM EDT

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

Last updated
December 08, 2023, 11:30 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
IFPRI

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
IFPRI
PI Affiliation
ILRI
PI Affiliation
ILRI
PI Affiliation
ILRI

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-09-18
End date
2024-03-29
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Slaughter is a major point of contamination of meat with food-borne pathogens. This trial, conducted in up to 150 slaughter facilities in Western Kenya, will evaluate the impact of training slaughterhouse workers on good hygiene practices, providing basic hygiene equipment to workers and facility managers, and monitoring workers' hygiene practices through weekly checklists completed by meat inspectors. Workers in a subset of treatment facilities will be given cash incentives conditional on their compliance with adherence to the recommended practices on which they are trained.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Cook, Elizabeth et al. 2023. "Improving hygiene practices in slaughterhouses in Western Kenya." AEA RCT Registry. December 08. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12126-1.1
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
TRAINING AND PROVISION OF MATERIALS
• Slaughterhouse workers at facilities assigned to Treatment 1 and Treatment 2 will be trained on hygiene practices by sub-county veterinarians. Butchers (slaughterhouse customers) will also be invited to the training, but will not be given incentives to attend. Training will include introduction to the incentive scheme given at the end, for facilities assigned to Treatment 2.
• At the training, the following equipment will be provided: handwashing station, soap and nail brush (to manager); cleaning buckets, brushes, detergent, and broom (to manager); supply of water treatment solution (to manager); gumboots: for all workers (to workers); aprons (to all workers)

MONITORING
• For all facilities in Treatment 1 and Treatment 2, the meat inspector responsible for the facility will be asked to fill out a hygiene monitoring form once per week, during one of their daily inspection visits. Inspectors will receive a payment of 300 KSH per form submitted.

INCENTIVES
• Workers in facilities assigned to Treatment 3 will receive a weekly incentive payment if hygiene practices at their facility meet the required threshold, according to the form submitted by the meat inspector.
• Incentive payments will be 50 KSH times the number of days the facility is normally open according to baseline data. Payments will be sent via MPesa and Airtel Money.
• Incentive payments will continue for 12 weeks after training.

Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2023-10-02
Intervention End Date
2024-02-11

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
- An index of hygiene practices observed at the slaughter facility.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Log CFU coliforms of swabs or samples collected from each of the following: a carcass swabbed just before sectioning, the knife used for sectioning, the hands of the worker sectioning this carcass, and water used to rinse equipment
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Meat inspectors responsible for 150 slaughterhouses in Western Kenya will be assigned to one of three experimental groups: Control, Treatment 1 (training, equipment and monitoring), and Treatment 2 (training, equipment, monitoring and incentives). A baseline survey will be conducted prior to the initiation of any interventions. During this survey the following people will be interviewed at each slaughter facility: the on-site manager, up to 4 workers, up to 2 customers. Direct observations of hygiene practices will also be conducted. Two follow-up surveys will be conducted: the first during the period when incentives are being paid to workers in Treatment 2, and the second after incentive payments have stopped being paid. People holding the same positions as those interviewed at baseline will be interviewed during each follow-up survey round.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization of meat inspectors to treatment groups will be conducted by a computer after stratifying by county. All facilities for which a meat inspector is responsible will be assigned to the same treatment group.
Randomization Unit
meat inspector
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
74 meat inspectors
Sample size: planned number of observations
143 slaughter facilities
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
approximately 24 to 25 meat inspectors per arm
approximately 48 slaughter facilities per arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Assuming a correlation coefficient of 0.2 between pre-intervention and post-intervention measurements, and a correlation coefficient of 0.3 between post-intervention measurements, this design enables detection of differences between groups of 0.5 standard deviations with power 0.89, and of 0.4 standard deviations with power of 0.73. This assumes no intra-cluster correlation across facilities within meat inspector.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
International Food Policy Research Institute Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2023-02-26
IRB Approval Number
DSGD-22-0632MMMM
IRB Name
International Livestock Research Institute Institutional Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2023-07-03
IRB Approval Number
ILRI-IREC2023-22
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials