The quality of evidence on the effect of financial incentives on breastfeeding practice s was low but seems to indicate a potential positive impact on receiving colostrum , early initiation of breastfeeding , exclusive breastfeeding and mean duration of exclusive breastfeeding .
There is no effect of financial incentives on immunization coverage although there was moderate quality evidence of conditional cash transfers leading to a small but non-significant increase in coverage of age-appropriate immunization .
Conclusions Financial incentives may have potential to promote increased coverage of several important child health interventions , but the quality of evidence available is low .
The more pronounced effects seem to be achieved by programs that directly removed user fees for access to health services .
Some indication of effect were also observed for programs that conditioned financial incentives on participation in health education and attendance to health care visits .
This finding suggest that the measured effect may be less a consequence of the financial incentive and more due to conditionalities addressing important informational barriers
Background Financial incentives are widely used strategies to alleviate poverty , foster development , and improve health .
Cash transfer programs , microcredit , user fee removal policies and voucher schemes that provide direct or indirect monetary incentives to households have been used for decades in Latin America , Sub-Saharan Africa , and more recently in Southeast Asia .
Until now , no systematic review of the impact of financial incentives on coverage and uptake of health interventions targeting children under 5 years of age has been conducted .
The objective of this review is to provide estimates on the effect of six types of financial incentive programs : ( i ) Unconditional cash transfers ( CT ) , ( ii ) Conditional cash transfers ( CCT ) , ( iii ) Microcredit ( MC ) , ( iv ) Conditional Microcredit ( CMC ) , ( v ) Voucher schemes ( VS ) and ( vi ) User fee removal ( UFR ) on the uptake and coverage of health interventions targeting children under the age of five years .
10-year effect of Oportunidades, Mexico's conditional cash transfer programme, on child growth, cognition, language, and behaviour: a longitudinal follow-up study
BACKGROUND  Mexico 's conditional cash transfer programme , Oportunidades , was started to improve the lives of poor families through interventions in health , nutrition , and education . We investigated the effect of Oportunidades  on children almost 10 years after the programme began . METHODS From April , 1998 , to October , 1999 , low-income communities were r and omly assigned to be enrolled in Oportunidades immediately ( early treatment , n=320 ) or 18 months later ( late treatment , n=186 ) . In 2007 , when 1093 children receiving early treatment and 700 late treatment in these communities were aged 8 - 10 years , they were assessed for outcomes including physical growth , cognitive and language development , and socioemotional development . The primary objective was to investigate outcomes associated with an additional 18 months in the programme . We used cluster-adjusted t tests and multivariate regressions to compare effects of programme participation for height-for-age , body-mass index ( BMI ) , and cognitive language and behavioural assessment scores in early versus late treatment groups . FINDINGS Early enrolment reduced behavioural problems for all children in the early versus late treatment group ( mean behaviour problem score -0.09 [ SD 0.97 ] vs 0.13 [ 1.03 ] ; p=0.0024 ) , but we identified no difference between groups for mean height-for-age Z scores ( -1.12 [ 0.96 ] vs -1.14 [ 0.97 ] ; p=0.88 ) , BMI -for-age Z scores ( 0.14 [ 0.99 ] vs 0.17 [ 1.06 ] ; p=0.58 ) , or assessment scores for language ( 98.8 [ 13.8 ] vs 98.4 [ 14.6 ] p=0.90 ) or cognition ( 98.8 [ 12.9 ] vs 100.2 [ 13.2 ] ; p=0.26 ) . An additional 18 months of the programme before age 3 years for children aged 8 - 10 years whose mothers had no education result ed in improved child growth of about 1.5 cm assessed as height-for-age [ corrected ] Z score ( beta 0.23 [ 0.023 - 0.44 ] p=0.029 ) , independently of cash received . INTERPRETATION An additional 18 months in the Oportunidades programme has independent beneficial effects other than money , especially for women with no formal education . The money itself also has significant effects on most outcomes , adding to existing evidence for interventions in early childhood . FUNDING Mexican Ministry of Social Development and the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development
The quality of evidence on the effect of financial incentives on breastfeeding practice s was low but seems to indicate a potential positive impact on receiving colostrum , early initiation of breastfeeding , exclusive breastfeeding and mean duration of exclusive breastfeeding .
There is no effect of financial incentives on immunization coverage although there was moderate quality evidence of conditional cash transfers leading to a small but non-significant increase in coverage of age-appropriate immunization .
Conclusions Financial incentives may have potential to promote increased coverage of several important child health interventions , but the quality of evidence available is low .
The more pronounced effects seem to be achieved by programs that directly removed user fees for access to health services .
Some indication of effect were also observed for programs that conditioned financial incentives on participation in health education and attendance to health care visits .
This finding suggest that the measured effect may be less a consequence of the financial incentive and more due to conditionalities addressing important informational barriers
Background Financial incentives are widely used strategies to alleviate poverty , foster development , and improve health .
Cash transfer programs , microcredit , user fee removal policies and voucher schemes that provide direct or indirect monetary incentives to households have been used for decades in Latin America , Sub-Saharan Africa , and more recently in Southeast Asia .
Until now , no systematic review of the impact of financial incentives on coverage and uptake of health interventions targeting children under 5 years of age has been conducted .
The objective of this review is to provide estimates on the effect of six types of financial incentive programs : ( i ) Unconditional cash transfers ( CT ) , ( ii ) Conditional cash transfers ( CCT ) , ( iii ) Microcredit ( MC ) , ( iv ) Conditional Microcredit ( CMC ) , ( v ) Voucher schemes ( VS ) and ( vi ) User fee removal ( UFR ) on the uptake and coverage of health interventions targeting children under the age of five years .