Maternal and Child Health in Poor Countries: Evidence from Randomized Evaluations

描述（由申请人提供）：几十年来，发展中国家的母亲和儿童所经历的不良健康状况已众所周知，但实用的全社会解决方案仍然难以实现。通过评估在不同背景下通过不同渠道改善健康的项目，该研究项目旨在确定四种此类解决方案。这些项目的共同点不仅在于其目标，还在于其严格的方法论：社会项目的受控实验。项目一研究了孟加拉国卫生服务需求的基本驱动因素的因果影响。该项目将通过研究一个包含三个主要部分的计划的长期影响，追踪教育、结婚年龄和妇女对资源的控制对妇女和儿童的结果的因果影响：推迟结婚的激励、教育支持和生计培训。项目二评估村级激励措施是否可以促进集体行动，以改善卫生服务的需求和获取机会。它研究了印度尼西亚政府计划 Generasi 的影响，根据该计划，村庄每年可获得一笔整笔拨款，条件是该村庄在 12 项目标健康和教育指标中每一项的表现。项目 III 研究在需求低迷的情况下如何在补贴卫生产品时控制腐败。它将评估价格对免费经杀虫剂处理的蚊帐和净水套件的吸收和使用的影响，并审查价格对腐败的影响。然后，它将评估减少这种腐败的三种干预措施：审计；市场竞争和社区赋权。项目 IV 研究了一家小额信贷组织向印度客户提供的灾难性健康保险计划的影响，该计划涵盖住院分娩。该项目将研究该计划对机构交付的影响，以及健康冲击对家庭经济福利的影响。它将对该计划的影响与政府计划的影响进行比较，该政府计划为妇女提供机构交付的经济激励。 公共卫生相关性：该研究计划旨在通过四项严格的评估来确定具有成本效益的方法来改善孕产妇和儿童健康。第一个项目衡量晚婚对年轻女性的影响，第二个项目评估改善当地卫生服务提供的新方法，第三个项目确定提供救生产品的最佳方式，第四个项目衡量保险对机构分娩的影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The poor health outcomes experienced by mothers and children in the developing world have been well known for decades, but practical, society-wide solutions remain elusive. By evaluating projects that seek to improve health through different channels in diverse contexts, this research program seeks to identify four such solutions. These projects are united not only by their goals, but in their rigorous methodology: controlled experiments of social programs. Project I examines the causal effect of fundamental drivers of demand for health services in Bangladesh. This project will trace the causal impact of education, age at marriage, and women's control over resources on women and children's outcomes by studying the long run implications of a program with three main parts: incentives to delay marriage, education support, and livelihood training. Project II assesses whether village-level incentive can foster collective action to improve demand for and access to health services. It examines the impact of a government program in Indonesia, Generasi, under which villages receive an annual block grant conditional on the village's performance on each of the 12 targeted health and education indicators. Project III examines how corruption can be controlled when subsidizing health product in a context of low demand. It will evaluate the impact of prices on the take up and usage of free insecticide treated bed nets and water purification kits and examine the impact of prices on corruption. It will then evaluate three interventions to reduce this corruption: auditing; market competition, and community empowerment. Project IV examines the impact of a catastrophic health insurance scheme offered by a microfinance organization to its clients in India, which covers hospital delivery. The project will study the impact of this program on the take up of institutional delivery, and on the impact of health shocks on household economic welfare. It will compare the impact of this program with that of a government program that gives women financial incentives for institutional delivery. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This research program seeks to identify cost-effective ways to improve maternal and child health through four rigorous evaluations. The first project measures the impact of delayed marriage for young women, the second evaluates a new approach to improve local health service delivery, the third identifies the best ways to deliver life-saving products, and the fourth measures the effect of insurance for institutional delivery.