Clinical trial NCT01047033: Evaluation of Impacts of Health Education for Children of Microcredit Clients in Peru
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Child Health Status
Keywords: Poverty
Global health
International health
Latin America
Peru
Child health
Microcredit
Microenterprise
Microfinance
Lead sponsor: Innovations for Poverty Action
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: American Medical Women's Association
name: University of California, Berkeley
name: Center for Latin American Studies at UCB
name: University of California, San Francisco
name: Interdisciplinary MPH Program at the UCB School of Public Health
name: Rainer Fund
First posted: 2010-01-12
Enrollment: 2453
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL

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.

Eligibility criteria: 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

Primary outcomes:
measure: Anthropometric measures including height, weight, and blood hemoglobin level
timeFrame: One year after intervention begins
measure: Client health knowledge on a variety of issues related to child health (e.g. diarrhea, fever)
timeFrame: One year after intervention begins
measure: 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.)
timeFrame: One year after intervention begins
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Social support as measured by the Duke-UNC FSSQ
timeFrame: One year after intervention begins
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Pucallpa
country: Peru
facility: Innovations for Poverty Action
Study officials:
affiliation: University of California, Berkeley
name: Lia Fernald, PhD MBA
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: Yale University
name: Dean Karlan, PhD MBA MPP
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Hamad R, Fernald LCh, Karlan DS. Health education for microcredit clients in Peru: a randomized controlled trial. BMC Public Health. 2011 Jan 24;11(1):51. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-11-51.