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Fields Changed

Registration

Field Before After
Study Withdrawn No
Intervention Completion Date June 13, 2021
Data Collection Complete Yes
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization) 24
Was attrition correlated with treatment status? No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations 232 households at endline
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms 232 households (118 in the treatment group and 114 in the control group)
Public Data URL https://doi.org/10.34894/AKWPIA
Is there a restricted access data set available on request? Yes
Restricted Data Contact [email protected] or [email protected]
Program Files No
Data Collection Completion Date July 17, 2021
Is data available for public use? Yes
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Papers

Field Before After
Paper Abstract This research assesses how low-income households in rural Kenya coped with the immediate economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. It uses granular financial data from weekly household interviews covering six weeks before the first case was detected in Kenya to five weeks after during which various containment measures were implemented. Based on household-level fixed-effects regressions, our results suggest that income from work decreased with almost one-third and income from gifts and remittances reduced by more than one-third after the start of the pandemic. Nevertheless, household expenditures on food remained at pre-COVID levels. We do not find evidence that households coped with reduced income through increased borrowing, selling assets or withdrawing savings. Instead, they gave out less gifts and remittances themselves, lent less money to others and postponed loan repayments. Moreover, they significantly reduced expenditures on schooling and transportation, in line with the school closures and travel restrictions. Thus, despite their affected livelihoods, households managed to keep food expenditures at par, but this came at the cost of reduced informal risk-sharing and social support between households.
Paper Citation Janssens, W., Pradhan, M., de Groot, R., Sidze, E., Donfouet, H. P. P., & Abajobir, A. (2021). The short-term economic effects of COVID-19 on low-income households in rural Kenya: An analysis using weekly financial household data. World Development, 138, 105280.
Paper URL https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105280
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Field Before After
Paper Abstract Background Epidemics can cause significant disruptions of essential health care services. This was evident in West-Africa during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, raising concerns that COVID-19 would have similar devastating consequences for the continent. Indeed, official facility-based records show a reduction in health care visits after the onset of COVID-19 in Kenya. Our question is whether this observed reduction was caused by lower access to health care or by reduced incidence of communicable diseases resulting from reduced mobility and social contacts. Methods We analysed monthly facility-based data from 2018 to 2020, and weekly health diaries data digitally collected by trained fieldworkers between February and November 2020 from 342 households, including 1974 individuals, in Kisumu and Kakamega Counties, Kenya. Diaries data was collected as part of an ongoing longitudinal study of a digital health insurance scheme (Kakamega), and universal health coverage implementation (Kisumu). We assessed the weekly incidence of self-reported medical symptoms, formal and informal health-seeking behaviour, and foregone care in the diaries and compared it with facility-based records. Linear probability regressions with household fixed-effects were performed to compare the weekly incidence of health outcomes before and after COVID-19. Results Facility-based data showed a decrease in health care utilization for respiratory infections, enteric illnesses, and malaria, after start of COVID-19 measures in Kenya in March 2020. The weekly diaries confirmed this decrease in respiratory and enteric symptoms, and malaria / fever, mainly in the paediatric population. In terms of health care seeking behaviour, our diaries data find a temporary shift in consultations from health care centres to pharmacists / chemists / medicine vendors for a few weeks during the pandemic, but no increase in foregone care. According to the diaries, for adults the incidence of communicable diseases/symptoms rebounded after COVID-19 mobility restrictions were lifted, while for children the effects persisted. Conclusions COVID-19-related containment measures in Western Kenya were accompanied by a decline in respiratory infections, enteric illnesses, and malaria / fever mainly in children. Data from a population-based survey and facility-based records aligned regarding this finding despite the temporary shift to non-facility-based consultations and confirmed that the drop in utilization of health care services was not due to decreased accessibility, but rather to a lower incidence of these infections.
Paper Citation Gómez-Pérez, G. P., de Groot, R., Abajobir, A. A., Wainaina, C. W., de Wit, T. F. R., Sidze, E., ... & Janssens, W. (2023). Reduced incidence of respiratory, gastrointestinal and malaria infections among children during the COVID-19 pandemic in Western Kenya: An analysis of facility-based and weekly diaries data. Journal of global health, 13.
Paper URL https://doi.org/10.7189/jogh.13.06024
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