TY - JOUR
T1 - Motivating volunteer health workers in an African capital city
AU - Fracchia, Mattia
AU - Molina-Millán, Teresa
AU - Vicente, Pedro C.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the editor, two referees, as well as seminar and conference participants at DENeB (Berlin), IFPRI, NEUDC-Dartmouth, Alicante, Ca’ Foscari, Paris School of Economics, Paris-Dauphine, Milan-Bicocca, and NOVAFRICA for useful comments. We are grateful to a large number of individuals who have made this project possible. First of all, we thank Helena Areal, Patrícia Carvalho, and Patrícia Maridalho, whom have headed the efforts by NGO VIDA in this project; Rita Aguiar, David Bastos, Ana Gaspar, Rita Pais, Luísa Rocha, and Ana Rita Simões also provided important contributions. We are also grateful to Sara Almeida, Fulvia Budillon, Giulia Caivano, Riccardo D’Ercole, Deoclécio Marinho, Frederica Mendonça, Melisa Rodrigues, Xaver Schenker, Maria Sousa, and António Vicente for outstanding field coordination and/or research assistance. We also convey a word of appreciation to all enumerators we worked with in this project. We acknowledge funding from the European Union , UNICEF, United States of America , Instituto Camões, Portugal , Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Portugal , USAID, United States of America , and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal . Teresa Molina-Millán acknowledges financial support from Generalitat Valenciana CDEIGENT/2020/016 and from the Spanish Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness, Grant ECO2017–87069-P. Ethics clearance was given by Universidade Nova de Lisboa as well as the National Institute of Public Health of Guinea-Bissau. A pre-analysis plan was registered for this project at the American Economic Association with the reference AEARCTR-0003399. All remaining errors are our responsibility.
Funding Information:
We thank the editor, two referees, as well as seminar and conference participants at DENeB (Berlin), IFPRI, NEUDC-Dartmouth, Alicante, Ca’ Foscari, Paris School of Economics, Paris-Dauphine, Milan-Bicocca, and NOVAFRICA for useful comments. We are grateful to a large number of individuals who have made this project possible. First of all, we thank Helena Areal, Patrícia Carvalho, and Patrícia Maridalho, whom have headed the efforts by NGO VIDA in this project; Rita Aguiar, David Bastos, Ana Gaspar, Rita Pais, Luísa Rocha, and Ana Rita Simões also provided important contributions. We are also grateful to Sara Almeida, Fulvia Budillon, Giulia Caivano, Riccardo D'Ercole, Deoclécio Marinho, Frederica Mendonça, Melisa Rodrigues, Xaver Schenker, Maria Sousa, and António Vicente for outstanding field coordination and/or research assistance. We also convey a word of appreciation to all enumerators we worked with in this project. We acknowledge funding from the European Union, UNICEF, United States of America, Instituto Camões, Portugal, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Portugal, USAID, United States of America, and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal. Teresa Molina-Millán acknowledges financial support from Generalitat Valenciana CDEIGENT/2020/016 and from the Spanish Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness, Grant ECO2017–87069-P. Ethics clearance was given by Universidade Nova de Lisboa as well as the National Institute of Public Health of Guinea-Bissau. A pre-analysis plan was registered for this project at the American Economic Association with the reference AEARCTR-0003399. All remaining errors are our responsibility.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s)
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - Community Health Workers (CHWs) are central to health systems. Still, they are typically unpaid volunteers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper follows all the CHWs in the capital city of Guinea-Bissau, who are non-salaried, and tests the impact of non-financial incentives on health indicators. We analyze two randomized interventions for CHWs: (i) an honorific award aimed at raising their social status; (ii) a video treatment aimed at increasing their perceived task significance. While employing administrative and survey data, we find that the social status intervention, differently from the task significance one, causes clear improvements in household health, particularly for young children.
AB - Community Health Workers (CHWs) are central to health systems. Still, they are typically unpaid volunteers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper follows all the CHWs in the capital city of Guinea-Bissau, who are non-salaried, and tests the impact of non-financial incentives on health indicators. We analyze two randomized interventions for CHWs: (i) an honorific award aimed at raising their social status; (ii) a video treatment aimed at increasing their perceived task significance. While employing administrative and survey data, we find that the social status intervention, differently from the task significance one, causes clear improvements in household health, particularly for young children.
KW - Africa
KW - Community Health Workers
KW - Guinea-Bissau
KW - Motivation
KW - Non-financial incentives
KW - Social status
KW - Task significance
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85152102045&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103096
DO - 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103096
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85152102045
SN - 0304-3878
VL - 163
JO - Journal of Development Economics
JF - Journal of Development Economics
M1 - 103096
ER -