<p>Tracking how people’s lives are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic can enable policymakers to better understand the situation in their countries and make data-driven policy decisions.</p>

<p>This study builds in large parts on a previous cash transfer experiment, explained in detail in Egger et al (2019), which estimated economy-wide effects of a randomised cash transfer program by the NGO GiveDirectly in Siaya County, Western Kenya.Between 2014-2016, GiveDirectly provided large, one-time transfers to recipient households that constituted over 15 percent of GDP in treatment villages. To understand the impact of COVID-19 on this study area, researchers&nbsp;collect phone survey data (to minimize in-person interactions) from households and enterprises.These phone surveys measure economic, health and behavioral change outcomes for households and enterprises targeted in Egger et al (2019).</p>

<p>&nbsp; This randomized controlled trial tests whether interventions that offset people’s over-optimism can improve the effectiveness of health risk information provision and correspondingly improve health in Coimbatore, India.Over-optimism about one's health risk (i.e., a tendency to believe that one's risk is lower than it is) has been documented in many settings and has been shown to lead to riskier behaviors.Participants of this study have comorbidities such as diabetes and hypertension.This study will first test whether over-optimism is present in the study population.</p>