Evaluation of Impacts of Health Education for Children of Microcredit Clients in Peru
Trial Snapshot
- Phase
- Not Applicable
- Status
- Completed
- Enrollment
- 2,453
- Locations
- 1
- Primary Endpoint
- Anthropometric measures including height, weight, and blood hemoglobin level
Study Overview
Brief Summary
This purpose of this study is to determine whether a health education intervention for clients of a microcredit organization in Peru will improve health outcomes among clients and their children.
Detailed Description
An increasingly popular scheme for poverty alleviation is microcredit, the awarding of small loans to individuals too poor or too remote to take advantage of traditional lending services. Studies have repeatedly shown that income is one of the factors strongly associated with physical and mental wellbeing. Yet economic growth alone doesn't necessarily lead to healthier families, especially if basic health knowledge or health services are absent in the community. Microcredit institutions have recently tried to address this issue by supplementing banking-only microcredit programs with programs that include "tie-ins" or "add-ons" such as health education or health services. A rigorous evaluation of such "banking-plus" endeavors has not yet been conducted, leaving a gap in the knowledge base regarding whether these organizations are meeting their stated goals in catering to both economic and social needs. This study attempts to address this research question using a randomized controlled trial of a health education intervention to clients of a microcredit organization in Peru.
Study Design
- Study Type
- Interventional
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Intervention Model
- Parallel
- Masking
- None
Eligibility Criteria
- Ages
- 18 Years to — (Adult, Older Adult)
- Sex
- All
- Accepts Healthy Volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria
- •Subjects must be current clients of the collaborating microcredit organization
- •Clients must be at least 18 years of age
- •Children of clients must be less than 5 years of age
- •Study participants must be able to speak and understand Spanish
Exclusion Criteria
- •Only one client from any particular household may participate
Arms & Interventions
Microcredit only
Intervention: Microcredit (Other)
Microcredit plus health education
Thirty minutes of a health education module administered to clients by loan officer at their monthly group meetings over the course of 8 months.
Intervention: Health education (Behavioral)
Microcredit plus health education
Thirty minutes of a health education module administered to clients by loan officer at their monthly group meetings over the course of 8 months.
Intervention: Microcredit (Other)
Outcomes
Primary Outcomes
Anthropometric measures including height, weight, and blood hemoglobin level
Time Frame: One year after intervention begins
Client health knowledge on a variety of issues related to child health (e.g. diarrhea, fever)
Time Frame: One year after intervention begins
Child health status as measured by a variety of indicators (e.g. days of diarrhea, presence of bloody diarrhea, presence of severe cough, days of fever, etc.)
Time Frame: One year after intervention begins
Secondary Outcomes
- Social support as measured by the Duke-UNC FSSQ(One year after intervention begins)