Entertainment-Education for Better Health: Insights from a Field Experiment in India

Figures & data

Table 1. Baseline summary statistics

	Full sample (N = 887)			Means by study arm
	Mean	SD	CV	HEE (N = 218)	HEEC (N = 224)	Control (N = 445)	F-test p-value
Panel A. Household (HH) variables
HH size	5.90	2.56	0.43	5.81	5.98	5.89	0.999
HH monthly income (Rs.)	7024.09	5096.80	0.73	6533.33	6944.51	7304.57	0.147
HH monthly income per capita (Rs.)	1247.38	773.70	0.62	1193.02	1228.34	1283.60	0.165
HH has TV	0.79	0.41		0.80	0.81	0.78	0.487
HH has bicycle	0.41	0.49		0.40	0.38	0.43	0.419
HH has scooter/motor	0.19	0.40		0.22	0.21	0.17	0.110
HH has computer	0.02	0.12		0.01	0.01	0.02	0.657
HH has mobile phone	0.84	0.37		0.82	0.83	0.84	0.419
HH has nonfarm enterprise	0.26	0.44		0.25	0.29	0.24	0.334
HH has water connection	0.78	0.42		0.82	0.73	0.78	0.156
Panel B. Respondent Variables
Woman	0.58	0.49		0.56	0.60	0.59
Age	38.47	9.10	0.24	38.58	39.14	38.08	0.467
Married	0.98	0.14		1.00	0.97	0.98	0.055*
Hindu	0.82	0.39		0.79	0.84	0.82	0.340
Completed elementary school	0.45	0.50		0.48	0.43	0.45	0.953
Completed secondary school	0.03	0.17		0.04	0.03	0.03	0.773
Microfinance client	0.48	0.50		0.48	0.49	0.48
Has inconsistent time preferences	0.49	0.50		0.46	0.50	0.50	0.642
Is risk averse	0.17	0.38		0.15	0.20	0.17	0.719
Has any income during last 12 months	0.75	0.43		0.78	0.74	0.73	0.505
Panel C. Health Variables
Knows AIDS is not curable	0.39	0.49		0.40	0.39	0.38	0.945
Knows nightblindness is curable	0.28	0.45		0.25	0.33	0.28	0.173
Knows should wash hands after defecation	0.92	0.27		0.93	0.92	0.92	0.717
Drinks filtered or boiled water	0.01	0.09		0.01	0.01	0.01	0.827
Uses a water vessel with tap	0.03	0.16		0.04	0.02	0.03	0.752

Notes: Data from baseline survey. In Column 3, the Coefficient of Variation (CV) is the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean and is calculated for continuous variables. The last column reports the p-value of the joint hypothesis test $H_0:{\beta }_1=0,{\beta }_2=0,$ where the regression is the same specification used for the impact analysis (Equation (1)(1) $$\begin{array}{cc}{Y}_{\mathit{\text{is}}}={\beta }_0\hfill & +{\beta }_1{\mathit{\text{HEE}}}_{\mathit{\text{is}}}+{\beta }_2{\mathit{\text{HEEC}}}_{\mathit{\text{is}}}+{\varphi }_s+{ϵ}_{\mathit{\text{is}}},\hfill \end{array}$$(1) ) and the dependent variable is a baseline outcome. The p-values are not reported for two baseline outcomes—i.e. the dummy for woman and the dummy for whether the respondent is a microfinance client—because they are contained in the strata fixed effects in the regression. ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.10.

Table 2. Study participants by wave and survey attrition (missing data)

		% Allocation random assignment			% of study participants with missing data
	No. of study participants	HEE	HEEC	Control	Baseline	Midline	Endline
Wave 1	191	21%	27%	52%	0%	53%	3%
Wave 2	282	26%	25%	50%	0%	5%	7%
Wave 3	160	25%	26%	49%	0%	4%	4%
Wave 4	254	26%	24%	50%	0%	4%	7%
Total	887	25%	25%	50%	0%	15%	5%

Notes: The study was conducted in four waves. Each wave refers to a separate iteration of participant recruitment, baseline, randomization, film screenings, midline, and endline. For each wave, the table indicates the number of study participants, their allocation to the study arms, and the percentage of study participants with missing data for each survey.

Table 3. Effects on short-term health knowledge

	All topics	By topic
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
		Cleanliness and hygiene	Midwives, maternal & child health	Condom, AIDS, syphilis
HEE	0.083***	0.083***	0.092***	0.065*
	(0.015)	(0.022)	(0.021)	(0.034)
HEEC	0.093***	0.075***	0.116***	0.067*
	(0.015)	(0.024)	(0.022)	(0.035)
F-test, HEE = HEEC
F-statistic	0.402	0.107	0.995	0.003
p-value	0.526	0.744	0.319	0.959
Control Mean	0.530	0.392	0.603	0.521
Control SD	0.157	0.267	0.243	0.351
N	755	755	755	755

Notes: Outcomes are from a health knowledge test three weeks after the final film screening. The dependent variables are the proportion of correct answers in all test questions (Column 1) or in a given subset of questions by topic (Columns 2 to 4). Regression results for individual test questions are presented in Supplementary Material Table B1. HEE is a dummy for assignment to only health entertainment-education. HEEC is a dummy for assignment to health entertainment-education with cash incentives for test performance. Robust standard errors. All regressions include dummies for randomization strata, where strata are defined by gender, neighborhood, and microfinance client status. ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.10.

Table 4. Effects on longer-term health knowledge

	All topics	By topic
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
		Cleanliness and hygiene	Midwives, maternal & child health	Condom, AIDS, syphilis	Night blindness
HEE	0.068***	0.037**	0.095***	0.046***	0.162***
	(0.013)	(0.016)	(0.025)	(0.015)	(0.033)
HEEC	0.057***	−0.002	0.061***	0.039**	0.181***
	(0.013)	(0.015)	(0.023)	(0.016)	(0.031)
F-test, HEE = HEEC
F-statistic	0.587	4.521	1.537	0.169	0.259
p-value	0.444	0.034	0.215	0.681	0.611
Control Mean	0.540	0.712	0.543	0.532	0.396
Control SD	0.148	0.210	0.292	0.178	0.361
N	839	839	839	839	839

Notes: Outcomes are from an endline survey conducted approximately 10 months after the final film screening. The dependent variables are the proportion of correct answers in all health knowledge questions (Column 1) or in a given subset of questions by topic (Columns 2 to 5). Regression results for individual questions are presented in Supplementary Material Tables B2 and B3. HEE is a dummy for assignment to only health entertainment-education. HEEC is a dummy for assignment to health entertainment-education with cash incentives for test performance. Robust standard errors. All regressions include dummies for randomization strata, where strata are defined by gender, neighborhood, and microfinance client status. ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.10.

Table 5. Effects on health behaviors

	All topics	Cleanliness and hygiene			Midwives, maternal & child health		Condoms, AIDS, syphilis		Night-blindness
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)	(9)
	Total no. of behaviors adopted	Drinks filtered or boiled water	Uses a water vessel with tap	Washes hands with soap at least thrice daily	Would go for ante-natal care if self/spouse pregnant	Would go for hospital delivery if self/spouse pregnant	Has been tested for HIV in the last 3 months	Uses condom during intercourse	Eats more nutritious foods to prevent night-blindness
HEE	0.238***	0.016	−0.014	0.066	−0.007	−0.010	0.001	0.041	0.144***
	(0.089)	(0.017)	(0.017)	(0.041)	(0.012)	(0.015)	(0.022)	(0.037)	(0.036)
HEEC	0.173**	0.015	−0.015	−0.016	−0.005	0.017	0.024	0.019	0.135***
	(0.085)	(0.014)	(0.017)	(0.042)	(0.012)	(0.014)	(0.024)	(0.036)	(0.036)
F-test, HEE = HEEC
F-statistic	0.392	0.009	0.001	2.799	0.022	2.760	0.669	0.245	0.047
p-value	0.531	0.923	0.974	0.095	0.883	0.097	0.414	0.621	0.829
Control Mean	3.082	0.027	0.051	0.645	0.986	0.969	0.060	0.217	0.128
Control SD	0.943	0.161	0.220	0.479	0.120	0.175	0.238	0.413	0.335
N	839	839	839	839	839	839	839	839	839

Notes: Outcomes are from an endline survey conducted approximately 10 months after the final film screening. In Column 1, the dependent variable is the total number of all behaviors that the respondent adopted (up to 8). The dependent variables in Column 2 onwards are dummies for whether the respondent adopted the given behavior. HEE is a dummy for assignment to only health entertainment-education. HEEC is a dummy for assignment to health entertainment-education with cash incentives for test performance. Robust standard errors. All regressions include dummies for randomization strata, where strata are defined by gender, neighborhood, and microfinance client status. ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.10.

Data availability statement

The replication package for this paper is available at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/EJ03JR.