Television and International Family Change: A Randomized Experiment

描述（由申请人提供）：电视被描述为当代世界最强大的思想传播者和社会化代理人之一，其改变态度和行为的力量一直被认为是。全世界花费数十亿美元开展电视宣传运动，以促进人口健康，尽管我们缺乏明确的证据证明电视与家庭组成和生殖健康之间存在因果关系。虽然大量的研究文献记录了电视的影响，但现有的研究主要是关联的;这使得不可能建立因果方向或消除第三个变量负责观察到的关联的可能性。在为这些现有的研究问题辩护时，许多人指出，由于电视是如此广泛，“即使不是不可能，也极难将目标受众随机分配到比较和干预组”（Gurman &安德伍德，2008年，第56页）。 然而，我们确实有难得的机会对电视的影响进行随机实验。我们与越南政府合作，选择了越南偏远山区的14个村庄，这些村庄目前缺乏电力。在使用相互加强的定性（家庭和社区民族志）和定量（调查访谈）数据收集策略收集所有14个村庄的基线信息后，我们将随机将一半的那些村庄分配到治疗组，另一半分配到对照组。接受治疗的村庄将收到电视机和装有汽油的发电机。控制村将不会收到发电机或电视。所有14个村庄将在引进电视后的3年内每年进行跟踪。这将是第一项使用大型随机设计来研究电视对家庭组建和生殖健康的因果影响的研究。 本研究的具体目的是：（1）探讨电视对家庭形成态度和行为的影响，包括结婚年龄、父母在择偶过程中的角色、期望的家庭规模、初次生育年龄和避孕措施的使用;（2）检查电视对生殖健康知识的因果影响（性传播感染及其预防知识，现代避孕知识），婚前性行为，生殖健康服务的使用，以及避孕套的使用;（3）检查电视效应运作的具体机制。这项研究是创新的，它依赖于实验设计，定量和定性方法的整合，以及国际和跨学科的研究团队。这个具有足够统计能力的大型实验（14个村庄，约4，200名受访者）可以显着推进我们的人口变化和媒体效应的理论模型，并对人口健康干预措施的设计和实施具有重要意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Television has been described as one of the most powerful idea disseminators and socializing agents in the contemporary world and its power to change attitudes and behavior has long been assumed. Billions of dollars are spent worldwide on television campaigns to promote population health even though we lack clear evidence of a causal link between television and family formation and reproductive health. Although a substantial research literature documents television's effects, existing research is primarily associational; making it impossible to establish a causal direction or to eliminate the possibility that a third variable is responsible for the observed associations. In defending these existing research problems, many note that because television is so widely available, "it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to randomly assign members of a target audience to comparison and intervention groups" (Gurman & Underwood, 2008, p. 56). However, we do have the rare opportunity to conduct a randomized experiment on television's effects. In cooperation with the Vietnam government, we have selected 14 villages in a remote, mountainous area of Vietnam that currently lacks electricity. After collecting baseline information on all 14 villages using mutually reinforcing qualitative (family and community ethnographies) and quantitative (survey interviews) data collection strategies, we will randomly assign half the villages to the treatment group and the other half to the control group. Treatment villages will receive televisions and generators with gasoline to operate the televisions. Control villages will not receive generators or televisions. All 14 villages will be followed annually for 3 years after television's introduction. This will be the first study to examine the causal impacts of television on family formation and reproductive health using a large, randomized design. The specific aims of this research are: (1) Examine the causal impacts of television on family formation attitudes and behaviors, including age at marriage, parent's role in the mate selection process, desired family size, age at first birth, and contraceptive use; (2) Examine the causal impacts of television on reproductive health knowledge (knowledge of STI's and their prevention, knowledge of modern contraceptives), premarital sexual activity, use of reproductive health services, and condom use; and (3) Examine the specific mechanisms through which television effects operate. This study is innovative in its reliance on an experimental design, its integration of quantitative and qualitative approaches, and its international and interdisciplinary research team. This large experiment with sufficient statistical power (14 villages with approximately 4,200 respondents) can significantly advance our theoretical models of both population change and media effects and has important implications for the design and delivery of population health interventions.