Policy Insights

What have we learned from randomized evaluations that policymakers, practitioners, and funders can use to improve social programs? J-PAL’s Policy Insights, organized by sector, highlight lessons emerging across multiple studies and the mechanisms that help explain the results.

J-PAL’s Sector Chairs and staff draw these insights from relevant randomized evaluations, updating and adding insights as the body of evidence grows. Each Policy Insight briefly summarizes their perspective on the evidence on a specific topic, with links to the original research and policy summaries. Read this blog post for more information about how we develop Policy Insights.

When combined with a detailed understanding of context and program implementation, we hope these insights can be practical inputs for policy and program design. For examples of how insights from randomized evaluations have informed policy, visit our Evidence to Policy page.

Person opening opening mail with letter containing text "Health Insurance Marketplace: You're almost done at Healthcare.gov..."

The effect of nudges on health insurance take-up in the United States

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Providing nudges to individuals eligible for health insurance benefits leads to small but notable increases in insurance take-up and plan switching. Low-cost, mass-outreach campaigns are particularly cost-effective compared to more-intensive interventions.
A vaccine injection is being prepared for a child.

Increasing routine child immunization coverage in low- and middle-income countries

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Interventions that strengthen the delivery of vaccines and those that increase demand for vaccination are imperative to increasing child immunization coverage. Improved delivery can be achieved by ensuring vaccines are reliably and locally available and strengthening health worker performance, while...
Nurse meets with a pregnant patient.

Improving health worker performance through pay-for-performance programs

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Pay-for-performance incentive programs for health care workers reward providers based on measurable performance indicators. Providing performance-based pay in addition to base pay can help to improve health provider performance on well-chosen targeted indicators relative to providing only base pay.
Several African young people sit in front of a television to watch an education program on sexually transmitted diseases.

Designing information campaigns to increase adoption of healthy behaviors

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Accurate information can help people determine which behaviors lead to improved health outcomes, but information alone is not necessarily sufficient to motivate adoption of these behaviors. When the primary barrier to the adoption of a healthy behavior is lack of awareness, information that is...
Women talking in front of computers

Strategies to increase health insurance enrollment

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A variety of interventions to either reduce costs or increase awareness of benefits can increase health insurance adoption. The value of health insurance can be difficult to evaluate before purchasing, so giving individuals an opportunity to experience insurance coverage is important for influencing...
Cash transfer in Kenya

Using cash transfers to improve child health in low- and middle-income countries

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Cash transfer programs conditional on the use of health products and services generally increase uptake and improve child health outcomes among households that receive them. Cash transfers that increase uptake of healthy behaviors in the short term can improve cognition and educational outcomes in...
Two adults sit outside reading with three children.

Encouraging early childhood stimulation from parents and caregivers to improve child development

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Evidence from 11 low- and middle-income countries shows that encouraging caregivers to play and interact with children aged 0–3 in a stimulating way improves children’s cognitive development. These programs can increase the time and resources parents invest in their children’s development. However...

The limited impact of US workplace wellness programs on health and employment-related outcomes

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Two randomized evaluations of workplace wellness programs in the US found limited impact on employees’ health habits and no impact on their health, employment, or health care costs in the initial years, contrary to previous observational studies.