Researchers

Mushfiq Mobarak, Paula López Peña, C. Austin Davis, Abu Shonchoy

Abstract

The best available strategies to stop COVID-19 require individuals to undertake protective actions, including social distancing and proper respiratory hygiene. Convincing people to undertake these strategies requires awareness of the disease, how it spreads, and what protective actions they can take. Evidence suggests that individualized messages from acquaintances and community leaders are more effective than impersonalized text messages in changing behavior and as witnessed during the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone and Liberia, during a time of crisis, information is particularly effective when it comes from influential leaders in the community. Researchers will identify successful COVID-19 mitigation messages by experimentally evaluating the strategies and channels for message delivery and the contents of the messages. To raise awareness about COVID-19, the research team plans to run two information treatments—one at the household level and the other at the community level. Once effective strategies have been identified, researchers will jointly work with A2i to scale up that form of message transmission.

Partners

a2i (Access to Information in Bangladesh), BRAC Amra Notun Network, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), Imam Association, Youth Policy Forum, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh

Impact Goals

Results Status

No Results Yet