Microcredit and Health Services Experiment in Bangladesh

描述(申请人提供)：该项目是一项4细胞析因实验，旨在测试单独和联合引入小额信贷(MC)和基本(健康)一揽子服务(ESP)干预措施对孟加拉国中部工会(村上的政治单位，由10-30个村庄组成)内村庄小组内妇女赋权、家庭经济福祉和预防性卫生服务使用的相对影响。将在4个地区对已婚妇女人数大致相同的3900户家庭(贫困家庭的过度抽样)进行基线和后续调查，干预措施将在2.7个过渡年进行。这些干预措施将由伙伴机构--Grameen银行、Gonoshastra Kendra和社会促进协会--实施，它们将扩大孟加拉国中部的活动，并接受随机分配的地区。在每个选定的工会中，没有这种方案的一群村庄将被随机分配到3个干预部门中的1个或一个控制部门(仅限通常的政府服务)。感兴趣的主要结果变量是妇女赋权、家庭经济福祉以及对具体保健和计划生育服务的利用。后续调查计划主要在与基线相同的群组中进行，以便可以采访相同的妇女，从而进行纵向分析。还将对每个研究分支中的一小部分新集群进行抽样，以评估基线调查的潜在“测试”效果。要检验的假设包括：a)有MC的试验区的赋权指标的改善将比没有MC的地区更大；b)所有试验区的健康、计划生育和经济指标的改善将比控制区的更大；c)MC和ESP计划的合并或整合将对避孕用具的使用、卫生保健的利用和儿童保健产生比简单添加单独计划的影响更大的影响。本研究将使用简单的统计数据、按地区比较前后的指标以及多水平的统计模型来检验假设。此外，计量经济学方法将被用来估计根据自我选择进行调整的个人层面的干预效果。这项研究是约翰·霍普金斯大学摩根州立大学(一所历史上的黑人大学)和布朗大学(孟加拉国的合作组织)的调查人员以及一名具有妇女赋权专业知识的顾问共同努力的结果。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The project is a 4-celled factorial experiment designed to test the relative effects of separately and jointly introducing micro-credit (MC) and essential (health) services package (ESP) interventions on women's empowerment, economic well-being of the family and use of preventive health services in groups of villages within 64 unions (the political unit above a village and composed of 10-30 villages) in central Bangladesh. Baseline and follow-up surveys of samples of 3900 households (over-sampling of poor households) with about the same number of ever-married women will be interviewed in the 4 areas and the interventions will be carried out in the 2.7 interim years. The interventions will be implemented by partner agencies-Grameen Bank, Gonoshastra Kendra and Association for Social Advancement-which will expand activities in central Bangladesh and accept random assignment of areas. In each selected union, a cluster of villages without such programs will be randomly allocated to 1 of the 3 intervention arms or a control arm (with usual government services only). The main outcome variables of interest are women's empowerment, economic well-being of the family and use of specific health and family planning services. The follow-up survey is planned to be mostly in the same clusters as the baseline so the same women can be interviewed, allowing longitudinal analyses. A fraction of new clusters in each study arm will be sampled as well to permit assessment of a potential "testing" effect of the baseline survey. Hypotheses to test include: a) Improvement in empowerment indicators will be greater in experimental areas with MC than in areas without MC; b) The improvement in health, family planning and economic indicators will be greater in all experimental areas than in the control area; c) The combined or integrated MC and ESP programs will have greater effects on contraceptive use, health care utilization, and child health care than those of the simple addition of the separate programs. Simple statistics comparing before-after indicators by area as well as multi-level statistical models will be used to test the hypotheses. In addition, econometric methods will be utilized to estimate intervention effects at the individual level adjusting for self-selection. This research represents a joint effort of investigators at Johns Hopkins University Morgan State University (a historically black university), and Brown University, the partnership organizations in Bangladesh, and a consultant with expertise in women's empowerment.