TY - JOUR
T1 - Raising Health Awareness in Rural Communities
T2 - A Randomized Experiment in Bangladesh and India
AU - Siddique, Abu
AU - Rahman, Tabassum
AU - Pakrashi, Debayan
AU - Islam, Asad
AU - Ahmed, Firoz
PY - 2022/3/11
Y1 - 2022/3/11
N2 - Delivering validated information to rural areas is a major challenge in low-income countries. In this paper, we study information provision to rural communities in the context of a global outbreak of an infectious disease—COVID-19. Two weeks after the initial lockdown in March 2020, we conducted a randomized experiment in rural Bangladesh and India to disseminate health information over the phone. We find that relative to information provided via SMS, phone calls can significantly improve people's awareness and compliance with health guidelines. We also find compliance to be substantially higher among women, which also persists after three months of the campaign.
AB - Delivering validated information to rural areas is a major challenge in low-income countries. In this paper, we study information provision to rural communities in the context of a global outbreak of an infectious disease—COVID-19. Two weeks after the initial lockdown in March 2020, we conducted a randomized experiment in rural Bangladesh and India to disseminate health information over the phone. We find that relative to information provided via SMS, phone calls can significantly improve people's awareness and compliance with health guidelines. We also find compliance to be substantially higher among women, which also persists after three months of the campaign.
U2 - 10.1162/rest_a_01182
DO - 10.1162/rest_a_01182
M3 - Article
SN - 0034-6535
SP - 1
EP - 45
JO - The Review of Economics and Statistics
JF - The Review of Economics and Statistics
ER -
