Evaluation of Impacts of Health Education for Children of Microcredit Clients in Peru

Child Health Status Clinical Trial

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT01047033
• Other study ID #: IPA-2007-PE
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: January 8, 2010
• Last updated: January 11, 2010
• Start date: January 2007
• Est. completion date: February 2008

Study information

• Verified date: January 2010
• Source: Innovations for Poverty Action
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: United States: Institutional Review Board
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial 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.

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.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 2453
• Est. completion date: February 2008
• Est. primary completion date: February 2008
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

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

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Child Health Status

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Health education
30 minutes of a health education module delivered to clients by loan officers during monthly repayment meetings, over the course of 8 months.

Other:
• Microcredit
Small loans administered to clients through the collaborating microcredit organization, to be repaid monthly over the course of six months in the context of monthly loan group meetings.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Peru	Innovations for Poverty Action	Pucallpa

Sponsors (7)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Innovations for Poverty Action	American Medical Women's Association, Center for Latin American Studies at UCB, Interdisciplinary MPH Program at the UCB School of Public Health, Rainer Fund, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, San Francisco

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Peru, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Anthropometric measures including height, weight, and blood hemoglobin level		One year after intervention begins	No
Primary	Client health knowledge on a variety of issues related to child health (e.g. diarrhea, fever)		One year after intervention begins	No
Primary	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.)		One year after intervention begins	No
Secondary	Social support as measured by the Duke-UNC FSSQ		One year after intervention begins	No