Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation in Nigeria to determine whether a campaign against electoral violence could spread through social networks to affect the perceptions and behaviors not only of the individuals targeted by the campaign but also others to whom they have social ties. The clearest effects of the campaign were on decreasing the perceptions of violence among those with social ties to the targeted individuals, most often through family links.

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 24 percent of the global burden of disease. While private clinics are the first source of care for many Africans, the quality of care offered in private facilities is inconsistent and often weak, and the private healthcare sector faces a wide host of challenges. In this study, researchers will evaluate the impact of a multi-pronged private healthcare initiative on healthcare utilization, quality of care, clinic financial outcomes, and child health outcomes in Kenya.

Researchers evaluated two programs to explore factors that may influence the amount of remittances people send: a temporary discount on the transaction fee and the provision of information about the returns to education in their home country. While the information about education did not change remittance amounts, the fee discount led to a substantial increase in the number of remittance transactions and the total amount remitted.

Researchers evaluated the impact on educational outcomes of providing enhanced vision services to low-income elementary school children. Providing vision screening and free eyeglasses significantly increased achievement in two of the three districts studied, while screening without the provision of free eyeglasses had no effect.

In Chicago, researchers evaluated an intensive two-on-one math tutoring program for 9th and 10th grade male students in public schools to assess the effectiveness of individualized instruction. Students who were randomly assigned to tutoring scored higher on math exams, earned better grades in math, and were more likely to pass high school classes.

For-profit (and often online) universities account for nearly half of all postsecondary growth over the last decade, yet relatively little is known about how employers value and compare these education types. To test this, researchers randomly submitted resumes with different characteristics and post-secondary credentials to measure the impact of education type on prospective employer interest. For jobs that did not require a degree, there was no advantage to having a postsecondary credential from a for-profit institution. However, resumes with for-profit postsecondary credentials were over 20 percent less likely to receive callbacks for jobs that did require a degree.

Researchers are evaluating the impact of making environmental inspections of high-polluting industrial plants more frequent and removing regulator discretion in selecting plants for inspection on regulatory compliance and pollution emissions in Gujarat, India.

Despite recent economic growth in Bangladesh, food insecurity remains widespread. Researchers evaluated the impact of an agricultural training program for farmer groups on technology adoption in rural Bangladesh, and investigated what drives adoption and who is affected by the training, both directly and indirectly.

Vaccination programs are considered to be cost-effective strategies to reduce child mortality and morbidity, but in many low-income countries, coverage for routine vaccines remains low. This is due to a range of possible factors including low parent knowledge about the benefits of vaccination, inadequate vaccine supply, and poor supply chain management. In Mozambique, researchers are examining the effectiveness of a mobile application-based solution that uses mobile technology to overcome these challenges and improve vaccination coverage.

Researchers evaluated the effect of a gender-transformative skills-building program on IPV incidence, HIV risk behaviors, and other health outcomes in rural Ethiopia. Overall, the program led to reductions in IPV when delivered to groups of men, but not when delivered to couples or to women only. Further, across all groups, the program increased support for gender equitable norms, increased equity in intrahousehold decision-making, and reduced HIV risk behaviors.

By the time they reach primary school, disadvantaged children often lag behind their more advantaged peers in the skills and concepts of formal math. To address this issue, researchers examined the impact of math games, played in preschools and exercising early emerging, universal and intuitive numerical and spatial abilities, on children’s learning of school math in Delhi, India. They found that the games led to long-term increases in children’s intuitive math abilities. The games also bolstered children’s mastery of the spatial and numerical language used in the preschools, but they did not enhance children’s subsequent learning of primary school mathematics.

Researchers evaluated the effect of an unconditional cash transfer program targeting mostly men on intimate partner violence in a context where nearly forty percent of households are polygamous. Polygamous households receiving the transfer experienced less physical and emotional violence, while monogamous households experienced no change.