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General

Study Overview

Title:

Improving Child Nutritional Status, Changing Behaviour Using Cash Transfers and Infant and Young Child Feeding Counselling in Somalia. -A Randomized Control Trail and Process Evaluation

Study is 3ie funded:

No

Study ID:

RIDIE-STUDY-ID-5a1264bdb207a

Initial Registration Date:

11/19/2017

Last Update Date:

11/19/2017

Study Status:

Ongoing

Abstract:

Given the limitation of ‘cash transfers only’ in making improvements in child nutritional status, and the prevalence of both cash transfer and infant and young children feeding counselling programs in Somalia; it is important to assess whether combining these two sets of interventions can achieve better nutritional outcomes for children than only infant and young child feeding counselling. Therefore, this study intends to measure the impact of combing infant and young child feeding counselling with cash transfer to achieve improved child nutrition and behaviour change in mothers/caregivers vs. only infant and young child feeding counselling. The proposed research will evaluate the feasibility of an ongoing intervention in Somalia rolled out by Save the Children in 2017/2018. Improved child nutrition in this study refers to improved nutritional status of the child and will not include women health or maternal health to improve child health.

Registration Citation:

Ali, M.K. and Erlandsson, K., 2017. Improving Child Nutritional Status, Changing Behaviour Using Cash Transfers and Infant and Young Child Feeding Counselling in Somalia. -A Randomized Control Trail and Process Evaluation. Registry for International Development for Impact Evaluations (RIDIE). Available at: 10.23846/ridie124

Categories:

Health, Nutrition, and Population

Additional Keywords:

Unconditional Cash Transfer

Secondary ID Number(s):

7069053

Principal Investigator(s)

Name of First PI:

Mohamed Kalid Ali

Affiliation:

Save the Children International

Name of Second PI:

Kerstin Erlandsson

Affiliation:

Dalarna University

Study Sponsor

Name:

Save the Children International

Intervention

Intervention Overview

Intervention:

Intervention rollout After the baseline survey, the training will be rolled out over 6 months for the first two batches, with 3 months for each batch. Half of the training participants will receive the unconditional cash transfer of $150, which will be disbursed in three equal instalments. The 3rd batch (i.e. control group) will receive the IYCF promotion intervention after the follow-up survey. As shown in the figure below, the CNVs will complete the sessions for batch 1 and 2 by month 7 of the study, and there will be a gap of 3 months before the 3rd batch receive the training. They will hold sessions for other caregivers who are not part of this study during this period.

Theory of Change:

Multiple Treatment Arms Evaluated?

Yes

Program Funder

Type of Organization:

NGO (International)

Intervention Timing

Intervention or Program Started at time of Registration?

Yes

Start Date:

10/01/2017

End Date:

11/30/2018

Evaluation Method

Evaluation Method Overview

Primary (or First) Evaluation Method:

Randomized control trial

Other (not Listed) Method:

Additional Evaluation Method (If Any):

Other (specify)

Other (not Listed) Method:

Process Evaluation

Method Details

Details of Evaluation Approach:

Research design This study will use randomized control trial (RCT) method of impact evaluation with qualitative process evaluation. For the RCT component, randomized rollout approach will be used for constructing counterfactual. The process evaluation will be conducted through participant observations and in-depth interviews. For the interventions, this study will leverage on two ongoing projects in Baidoa and Dharkeynley districts. Sample selection and randomization For this study, we will select 20 CNVs who have been trained by the two projects and are expected to conduct IYCF promotion sessions.

Outcomes (Endpoints):

The key outcome for this study will be the change in WHZ for individual children. From the SMART surveys, we find mean for WHZ for the target children to be -1.4 with standard deviation ranging from 0.3 to 0.5. For power calculation, we use -1.4 as the baseline mean and SD 0.4. With 400 children in each of the three study arms (after accounting for an attrition rate of around 15%), one follow-up measure, correlation between baseline and follow-up of 0.5, the power for a minimum detectable effect of 0.1 z-score is 94%. An MDE of 0.1 can be considered as reasonably low for the interventions.

Unit of Analysis:

change in WHZ for individual children

Hypotheses:

Unit of Intervention or Assignment:

Individuals

Number of Clusters in Sample:

Number of Individuals in Sample:

60

Size of Treatment, Control, or Comparison Subsamples:

The number of caregivers per community selected by this criterion is anticipated to be between 50 and 60, and we use 54 as the average

Supplementary Files

Analysis Plan:

Other Documents:

Data

Outcomes Data

Description:

Household Survey

Data Already Collected?

Yes

Data Previously Used?

No

Data Access:

Not restricted - access with no requirements or minimal requirements (e.g. web registration)

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Yes

Data Approval Process:

Approval Status:

Treatment Assignment Data

Participation or Assignment Information:

Yes

Description:

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Data Previously Used?

Data Access:

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Data Approval Process:

Approval Status:

Data Analysis

Data Analysis Status:

No

Study Materials

Upload Study Materials:

IYCF Questionnaire: IYCF Questionnaire_.doc

Registration Category

Registration Category:

Prospective, Category 3: Data for measuring impacts have been obtained/collected by the research team but analysis for this evaluation has not started

Completion

Completion Overview

Intervention Completion Date:

Data Collection Completion Date:

Unit of Analysis:

Clusters in Final Sample:

Total Observations in Final Sample:

Size of Treatment, Control, or Comparison Subsamples:

Findings

Preliminary Report:

Preliminary Report URL:

Summary of Findings:

Paper:

Paper Summary:

Paper Citation:

Data Availability

Data Availability (Primary Data):

Date of Data Availability:

Data URL or Contact:

Access procedure:

Other Materials

Survey:

Survey Instrument Links or Contact:

Program Files:

Program Files Links or Contact:

External Link:

External Link Description:

Description of Changes:

Study Stopped

Date:

Reason: