Empowering Girls: Health-seeking Behavior, Staying in School, and Preventing Risky Sex

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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This study will test the effectiveness of a phone-based big sister/big brother program designed to provide health information and support, reduce school dropouts, and promote safer relationships. The program's goal is to create a phone-based safe space, to ensure adolescents remained connected with access to support and health information during COVID lockdowns.

Official Title
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Empowering Girls: Health-seeking Behavior, Staying in School and Preventing Risky Sex

Conditions
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Pregnancy Related, Behavior, Health

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Low tech health SMS messages
* Behavioral: Low tech health Phone + SMS messages


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: Adolescent who provided their phone number to Young 1ove staff when prompted by their school; or their siblings/ other adolescents living in the same household. Parents and students consented to participate. Exclusion Criteria: -

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 10 Years
Maximum Age: 25 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Prevention
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Phone-based intervention Plus SMS messages<br> | Behavioral: Low tech health Phone + SMS messages<br>* Weekly health-related phone calls plus SMS messages are provided to adolescents.<br>|
| Experimental: SMS messages only<br> | Behavioral: Low tech health SMS messages<br>* Weekly health-related SMS messages are provided to adolescents.<br>|
| No Intervention: Control<br> | |

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Share of students that have been or are pregnant and/or have dropped out of school | These two outcomes (using school administrative data on whether students have dropped out of school and were pregnant) will be combined into a composite variable equal to 1 if the student has become pregnant and/or has dropped out of school. |  6 months post-program | 
| Share of students with the accurate belief that older partners have the highest risk of HIV compared to younger partners. | Indicator variable from the survey question wording: Who do you think has the highest risk of infecting you with HIV? |  4 weeks post program | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Share of students reporting that they make the final decision in their life about visiting a Sexual and reproductive health clinic | Indicator variable from the survey question response |  4 weeks post program | 
| Share of students reporting that if they or their partner were pregnant, they would tell the data collector | Indicator variable coded 1 if student answered likely or very likely to 'If you were pregnant, how likely would you be to tell me?' |  4 weeks post program |