NOVAFRICA Working Paper “Motivating Volunteer Health Workers in an African Capital City”

A new working paper has been added to the NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series. Written by Facchia Mattia, Teresa Molina Milan and Pedro Vicente, this paper follows all the Community Health Workers in the capital city of Guinea-Bissau and tests the impact of different types of non-financial incentives on health indicators.

Title: Motivating Volunteer Health Workers in an African Capital City

Authors: 
Fracchia Mattia – (Nova School of Business and Economics and NOVAFRICA)
Teresa Molina Millan – (University of Alicante, NOVAFRICA and IZA)
Pedro Vicente – (Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA, and BREAD)

Abstract:
Community Health Workers (CHWs) are central to health systems. Still, they are typically unpaid volunteers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper follows all the CHWs in the capital city of Guinea-Bissau and tests the impact of different types of non-financial incentives on health indicators. We analyze two randomized interventions for CHWs: (i) an honorific award aimed at raising their social status; (ii) a video treatment aimed at increasing their perceived task significance. While employing administrative and survey data, we find that the social status intervention, differently from the task significance one, causes clear improvements in household health, particularly for young children.

You can find more information here.