NCT04870593

What Works to Get the Elderly Vaccinated Against COVID-19? Experimental Evidence From India

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 3,006 (actual)
• Sponsor: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 55 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

COVID-19 poses a substantial risk to elderly populations; understanding how to get elders vaccinated against the virus is therefore a policy priority. An experiment with elders in Tamil Nadu, India will be used to evaluate interventions policymakers might use to raise vaccination rates amongst the elderly. The particular interventions being tested are: calling elders to inform them about vaccination; encouragement of a "buddy system," whereby elders are accompanied to the vaccination site by another adult who could also get the vaccine; and seeding vaccination information with "gossips," individuals who elders identify as being good at spreading information in the elders' communities. The interventions are phone-based, and can be implemented quickly and at low cost. This makes them promising strategies the Tamil Nadu government and other governments could use to vaccinate elderly populations against COVID-19.

Conditions

• Aging
• Covid19

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Information	Elder informed about vaccination.
BEHAVIORAL	Buddy	Elder encouraged to get vaccinated using "buddy system," whereby he/she is accompanied to the vaccination site by another adult who could also get the vaccine. A potential buddy also given vaccination information and encouraged to help the elder get to the vaccination site so they could both be vaccinated.
BEHAVIORAL	Gossip intervention	Members of elder's community asked who in the community is good at spreading information. These "gossips" then asked to spread information about vaccination of elders. If buddy intervention assigned in community, gossips also asked to encourage their communities to use the buddy system to get elders vaccinated.
BEHAVIORAL	Information assigned in community	Information intervention assigned for other elders in community.
BEHAVIORAL	Buddy assigned in community	Buddy intervention assigned for other elders in community.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-04-17
• Primary completion: 2022-09-30
• Completion: 2022-09-30
• First posted: 2021-05-03
• Last updated: 2023-03-29

Locations

1 site across 1 country: India