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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
The experiment will be fielded within a household survey with low-income households in four districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is part of a game-like survey tool that asks respondents to imagine being exposed to a health shock that is defined by a health vignette script, assess medical and cost uncertainties for six care-seeking options and finally take a hypothetical decision for one of these six options. Each respondent is presented with two health scenarios subsequently: one light scenario that does not require formal medical care (light fever) and one severe scenario (randomly selected from heart disease and appendicitis).
Within each scenario, there are two stages of interventions: first, respondents are randomly allocated to one of four equally sized groups: one control group that does not receive any additional information, and three treatment groups that receive additional information within the vignette: a) targeted at medical uncertainty (nature of health shock, recommended treatment and level of care); b) targeted at cost uncertainty (health insurance coverage); and c) information content of a) and b) combined. This information content is designed in a way that could also be communicated via a medical helpline. After presenting the vignette and information, facility-specific expected probability to get better, expected costs, medical and cost uncertainty are elicited followed by the first hypothetical healthcare decision. In the second intervention stage, all respondents are presented with an overview of their reported facility-specific expectations. Then, within treatment groups a)-c), half of the respondents will see an overview of all their answers like the control group, and the other (randomly selected) half will see the overview without medical uncertainty (a), cost uncertainty at secondary facilities (b) or both (c).
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After
The experiment will be fielded within a household survey with low-income households in four districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is part of a game-like survey tool that asks respondents to imagine being exposed to a health shock that is defined by a health vignette script, assess medical and cost uncertainties for six care-seeking options and finally take a hypothetical decision for one of these six options. Each respondent is presented with two health scenarios subsequently: one light scenario that does not require formal medical care (light fever) and one severe scenario (randomly selected from heart disease and appendicitis).
Within each scenario, there are two stages of interventions: first, respondents are randomly allocated to one of four equally sized groups: one control group that does not receive any additional information, and three treatment groups that receive additional information within the vignette: a) targeted at medical uncertainty (nature of health shock, recommended treatment and level of care); b) targeted at cost uncertainty (health insurance coverage); and c) information content of a) and b) combined. This information content is designed in a way that could also be communicated via a medical helpline. After presenting the vignette and information, facility-specific expected probability to get better, expected costs, medical and cost uncertainty are elicited followed by the first hypothetical healthcare decision. In the second intervention stage, all respondents are presented with an overview of their reported facility-specific expectations. Then, within treatment groups a)-c), half of the respondents will see an overview of all their answers like the control group, and the other (randomly selected) half will see the overview without medical uncertainty (a), cost uncertainty at secondary facilities (b) or both (c).
We will conduct a results-blind analysis before receiving the full data including treatment allocation.
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