Increasing COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake in Developing Countries (Bihar)

University of Connecticut, Lahore University of Management Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, Innovations for Poverty Action

Working with governments in Bihar, India, we will evaluate a number of mechanisms to increase vaccine uptake. These include household vaccination visits instead of community vaccination clinic.monetary and non-monetary incentives, and concurrent mask promotion. This ClinicalTrials entry contains results only for the study in Bihar.

The goal of the study is to identify strategies that best promote and support COVID vaccine uptake in developing countries, we propose to test a range of scalable social and behavioural interventions. This could help policy makers design and employ interventions that are effective. This is especially valuable in resource constrained contexts where funds and institutional resources can be diverted towards interventions that have proven to work. In Bihar the intervention will be village-level social mobilization involving community promotion, including in-person vaccine reinforcement, and household-level social mobilization. Some treatment villages will receive household- level interventions with varying intensity (different proportion of households will be visited). There will also an accompanying mask distribution campaign during household visits where the importance of mask-wearing as a complement to vaccine use will be explained. This ClinicalTrials entry contains results only for the study in Bihar.

There are five arms. Arm 1: Control; Arm 2: Village-level vaccine clinics with monetary, non-monetary, or no incentive; Arm 3: Household-level vaccination with monetary, non-monetary, or no incentive; Arm 4: Mask promotion; Arm 5: Village-level vaccine clinics and mask promotion

The investigator and outcome assessor will be blind to study arm assignment. Due to the nature of the intervention, participants and care providers will not be blind to intervention assignment; however they are likely to be unaware of intervention components because they are not expect to communicate with those who are assigned to a different intervention arm

No vaccine or mask promotion, but access to vaccines increased to match access in intervention villages

Village-level vaccine clinics with monetary, non-monetary, or no incentive. Villages are cross-randomized to grocery coupon, food ration, no incentive, or grocery coupon to both community member and community health worker after the community member has received a vaccination.

Household-level vaccination with monetary incentive or no incentive. Villages are cross-randomized to grocery coupon or no incentive upon receiving vaccination

Individuals are encourage to attend village-level vaccine clinics but not given any incentive. Mask distribution and reinforcement activities are conducted in villages at a similar time as vaccine promotion.

Individuals will be provided with a guaranteed cash payment, entry into a cash lottery, or guaranteed gift of food if they are vaccinated

Individuals who are not wearing masks over their mouth and nose are stopped in public places and encouraged to wear a mask