Disability reporting – How does survey protocol affect reporting?

Last registered on August 20, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Disability reporting – How does survey protocol affect reporting?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019386
Initial registration date
August 14, 2026

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
August 20, 2026, 9:06 AM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Subha Mani
Affiliation
Fordham University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Ridwan Hossain
PI Affiliation
Higher Education Coordinating Commission
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PI Name
Sophie Mitra
PI Affiliation
Fordham University
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PI Name
Katherine Theiss
PI Affiliation
Radford University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2026-04-01
End date
2027-07-31
Keywords
Health
Additional Keywords
Disability, Survey Protocol, DHS, MICS
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We designed a randomized survey experiment in Bangladesh to investigate: (1) whether and how disability reporting differs between self-reports and proxy-reports, allowing us to estimate the extent of under- or over-reporting introduced by proxy respondents; (2) whether and how the gender of the proxy respondent systematically influences reported prevalence and severity of disability, and (3) whether and how survey protocol and proxy’s gender influence other forms of measurement error and cost-effectiveness of data collection.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hossain, Ridwan et al. 2026. "Disability reporting – How does survey protocol affect reporting?." AEA RCT Registry. August 20. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19386-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2026-04-01
Intervention End Date
2026-06-10

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our outcome variables include reported disability on both the extensive margin (e.g., no disability versus at least some disability) and intensive margin (e.g., no difficulty, some difficulty, a lot of difficulty, or cannot at all). Additionally, we will analyze these outcomes on an aggregate level (i.e., any disability) and within each of domains separately (seeing, hearing, mobility, memory, selfcare, communication, anxiety, depression).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Other outcome variables will capture various issues with data quality and cost-effectiveness of data collection.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We randomly assign each household to one of four treatment arms, which vary in the protocols used to collect data.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
SurveyCTO
Randomization Unit
Household
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1000 households
Sample size: planned number of observations
750 individuals per treatment arm x 4 arms = 3000 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
250 clusters per arm/250 households per treatment arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
We conduct ex ante power calculations for binary disability-reporting outcomes, accounting for the clustering of individual respondents within households. Assuming a baseline disability prevalence of 30 percent, a two-sided significance level of 5 percent, an average of three adult respondents per household, and household-level intra-cluster correlation coefficients ranging from approximately 0.03 to 0.11, we target approximately 250 households per treatment arm. This corresponds to approximately 750 individual respondents per arm. Under these assumptions, the proposed sample provides 80 percent power to detect at least a 7-percentage points reduction in disability prevalence.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Fordham University
IRB Approval Date
2026-03-31
IRB Approval Number
Protocol id 3142
Analysis Plan

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