Social Network Interventions in Rural Honduras

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Dysentery; Malnutrition; Social Transmission of Health Behaviors
• Interventions: Behavioral: exposure to water chlorination; Behavioral: exposure to vitamin use; Behavioral: high in-degree; Behavioral: nominated by random

• Registration Number: NCT01672580
• Lead Sponsor: Harvard University

Brief Summary

This project will examine the spread of health interventions with a randomized control trial design by introducing public health interventions in 32 villages in the Honduran Department of Lempira. Based on identified public health needs in the region, namely improved drinking water and diet, this study will provide training on the use of chlorine (sodium hypochlorite) for water purification and multivitamins for nutritional supplementation. In some villages, individuals selected for their social connectedness will be trained and given coupons that can be redeemed for either chlorine bleach or multivitamins, and these persons will be asked to spread this information and distribute coupons to four people of their choosing. In other villages, individuals selected at random will receive the same training, materials, and instructions. A second wave of coupon distribution will provide coupons to those who received a coupon from the original "seed" groups so that they may disperse these coupons further out in the social networks. Over the following months, study investigators will look at how knowledge of these health practices, and uptake or and adherence to the practices, spreads throughout the villages.

More specifically, the investigators will examine the speed and extent of spreading of these new health practices after introducing them to three different initial "seed" groups: (1) people chosen on the basis of being named as a friend by many people in their village, (2) people chosen based on being named as a friend by a randomly chosen individual, and (3) a group of randomly chosen individuals. It is hypothesized that spread will occur faster and/or to a greater extent when the intervention is started in groups 1 and 2 versus group 3 (control group).

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2012-08
• Study First Submitted: 2012-08-20
• Study First Submitted QC: 2012-08-22
• Study First Posted: 2012-08-27
• Primary Completion: 2013-10
• Study Completion: 2014-10
• Status Verified: 2015-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2015-03-18
• Last Update Posted: 2015-03-19

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 5773

Inclusion Criteria

• Residents of Targeted Communities, ages 15 and up

Exclusion Criteria

• Children younger than age 15

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: FACTORIAL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Indegree-Cloro	high in-degree	high in-degree, exposure to water chlorination
Indegree-Vitamin	high in-degree	high in-degree, exposure to vitamin use
Nominated-Cloro	nominated by random	nominated by random, exposure to water chlorination
Nominated-Cloro	exposure to water chlorination	nominated by random, exposure to water chlorination
Nominated-Vitamin	nominated by random	nominated by random, exposure to vitamin use
Random-Vitamin	exposure to vitamin use	exposure to vitamin use
Random-Cloro	exposure to water chlorination	exposure to water chlorination
Indegree-Cloro	exposure to water chlorination	high in-degree, exposure to water chlorination
Nominated-Vitamin	exposure to vitamin use	nominated by random, exposure to vitamin use
Indegree-Vitamin	exposure to vitamin use	high in-degree, exposure to vitamin use

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Intervention Spread	October 2012	Use of health product among community members will be tracked.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Yale University; 🇺🇸 New Haven, Connecticut, United States