Invitations, Incentives, and Conditions: A Randomized Evaluation of Demand-Side Interventions for Health Screenings in Armenia

34 Pages Posted: 29 Sep 2020

See all articles by Damien de Walque

Damien de Walque

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG); World Bank

Adanna Chukwuma

World Bank

Nono Ayivi-Guedehoussou

World Bank

Marianna Koshkakaryan

World Bank

Date Written: July 31, 2020

Abstract

The study is a randomized controlled trial that investigates the impact of four demand-side interventions on health screening for diabetes and hypertension among Armenian adults ages 35-68 who had not been tested in the last 12 months. The interventions are personal invitations from a physician (intervention group 1), personal invitations with information about peer screening behavior (intervention group 2), a labeled but unconditional cash transfer in the form of a pharmacy voucher (intervention group 3), and a conditional cash transfer in the form of a pharmacy voucher (intervention group 4). Compared with the control group in which only 3.5 percent of participants went for both screenings during the study period, interventions 1 to 3 led to a significant increase in the screening rate of about 15 percentage points among participants. The highest intervention impact was measured among recipients in intervention group 4, whose uptake of screening on both tests increased by 31.2 percentage points. The levels of cost-effectiveness of intervention groups 1, 2, and 4 are similar while for intervention group 3 it is about twice more expensive per additional person screened.

Keywords: Non-communicable diseases, hypertension, diabetes, health screenings, invitations, incentives, conditional cash transfers, primary care.

JEL Classification: I12, I15, O15

Suggested Citation

de Walque, Damien and Chukwuma, Adanna and Ayivi-Guedehoussou, Nono and Koshkakaryan, Marianna, Invitations, Incentives, and Conditions: A Randomized Evaluation of Demand-Side Interventions for Health Screenings in Armenia (July 31, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3666876 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3666876

Damien De Walque (Contact Author)

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG)

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World Bank ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://econ.worldbank.org/staff/ddewalque

Adanna Chukwuma

World Bank ( email )

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

Nono Ayivi-Guedehoussou

World Bank ( email )

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

Marianna Koshkakaryan

World Bank ( email )

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

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