Clinical trial NCT01333826: Schooling, Income, and HIV Risk in Malawi
Official title: Does Schooling Protect Young Women From HIV?
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: HIV
Schooling
Conditional Cash Transfers
Unconditional Cash Transfers
Lead sponsor: George Washington University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: World Bank
name: University of California, San Diego
name: University of Malawi
First posted: 2011-04-12
Enrollment: 3796
Sex: FEMALE
Minimum age (years): 13
Maximum age (years): 22
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: This study is designed to evaluate a two-year randomized intervention in Malawi that provides cash transfers to current schoolgirls (and young women who have recently dropped out of school) to stay in (and return to) school in order to understand the possible effects of such programs on the sexual behavior of the beneficiaries and their subsequent HIV risk.

Detailed description: Motivation:

Education has been suggested as a "social vaccine" to prevent the spread of HIV (Jukes, Simmons, and Bundy, 2008), but almost all of the evidence we have on the link between school attendance (or attainment) and the risk of HIV infection comes from cross-sectional studies. Furthermore, the role of income (especially that of women's poverty) has been hypothesized as a significant factor in the spread of HIV in SSA, but again there is no credible evidence showing a causal link between income and HIV risk. A randomized intervention, such as the one proposed here, that provides randomly varied amounts of cash transfers to young individuals and their guardians is the perfect setting to examine the possible existence of such causal relationships.

Objectives:

The objective of the proposed study here is to provide credible evidence on issues about which we still know very little. Specifically, the main questions the study will try to answer are the following:

1. Are the observed effects of a CCT associated with the transfer or the conditionality imposed on the recipient?
2. Do the outcomes of interest improve with increased benefit levels set by the program?
3. Do CCT programs for schooling have any positive health impacts, including prevention of STIs such as HIV/AIDS among young people?

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* female
* 13-22 years old
* never married

Primary outcomes:
measure: Sexually Transmitted Infections
timeFrame: 18 months
measure: Schooling
timeFrame: 12 months/24 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Sexually Transmitted Infections
timeFrame: 18 months
measure: Marriage and fertility
timeFrame: 12 months/24 months
measure: sexual behavior
timeFrame: 12 months/ 24 months
measure: HIV Awareness
timeFrame: 12 months/24 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Zomba
country: Malawi
facility: Zomba District, Malawi
Study officials:
affiliation: World Bank
name: Berk Ozler, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: University of California, San Diego
name: Craig T McIntosh, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: George Washington University
name: Sarah J Baird, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: University of Malawi
name: Ephraim Chirwa, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: University of California, San Diego
name: Richard S Garfein, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Baird S, Chirwa E, McIntosh C, Ozler B. The short-term impacts of a schooling conditional cash transfer program on the sexual behavior of young women. Health Econ. 2010 Sep;19 Suppl:55-68. doi: 10.1002/hec.1569.
citation: Baird SJ, Garfein RS, McIntosh CT, Ozler B. Effect of a cash transfer programme for schooling on prevalence of HIV and herpes simplex type 2 in Malawi: a cluster randomised trial. Lancet. 2012 Apr 7;379(9823):1320-9. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61709-1. Epub 2012 Feb 15.