NCT05709457

Long Term Effects Of a Maternal Cash Transfer Experiment

Long Term Effects of an Intervention on Maternal Behavior, Child Health, and Community Influence

• Status: Active Not Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 21,000 (estimated)
• Sponsor: RAND · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 13 Years – 60 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This is a follow-on study to a cluster randomized trial of maternal conditional incentives conducted in Nigeria. This study found that cash transfers, conditional on women obtaining facility-based prenatal, delivery, and postnatal care, resulted in large, significant effects on maternal and child outcomes (NICHD R01HD083444). This study will answer additional key policy questions. First, are the effects on maternal behavior temporary, or do they result in more sustained behavior change? Second, do measured short run (SR) child health effects persist over the long run? Third, did the program generate spillovers?

Detailed description

This study will build on what the study investigators learned from the RCT and extend it in novel directions. Research assistants will return to the study communities approximately 5 years after enrollment in the RCT to collect data on utilization of maternal health care services for births to the trial participants after the intervention, and on long run child health outcomes including child weight and height. The research assistants will also collect data on the birth outcomes of non-incentivized childbearing women in the study clusters. Data will be collected through in-person surveys of study participants. This study will provide valuable new evidence about the indirect and long run effects of demand-side incentives. This is of critical importance because accounting for only the direct effects may severely underestimate the full effect of the program.

Conditions

• Maternal Health Services
• Outcome Assessment

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Cash transfer in prior study	Women were offered a cash transfer conditional on attending prenatal and postnatal visits and delivering in a facility

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-05-15
• Primary completion: 2023-07-31
• Completion: 2026-04-30
• First posted: 2023-02-02
• Last updated: 2026-01-21

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Nigeria