Family planning campaigns on television and contraceptive use in India.

OBJECTIVE: The paper examines the association between viewing family planning campaigns on television and being aware, improved intention to use, and current usage of modern contraceptives in India. DATA: The study uses detailed data of the currently married women from the current round of the National Family Health Survey. METHODS: We use the instrumental variable approach, propensity score matching method, besides the ordinary least square regression technique to estimate the association between viewing family planning campaigns on television and knowledge, intention to use, and current usage among the currently married women. CONCLUSION: The overall results suggest that currently married women who have seen family planning campaigns on television in the last few months are more likely to know, have a higher intention to use and use modern family planning methods. The effectiveness gets amplified when exposure to such campaigns is complemented with motivation provided by frontline health workers.

Stigma and misconceptions in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic: A field experiment in India.

A hidden cost of the COVID-19 pandemic is the stigma associated with the disease for those infected and groups that are considered as more likely to be infected. This paper examines whether the provision of accurate and focused information about COVID-19 from a reliable source can reduce stigmatization. We carry out a randomized field experiment in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, in which we provide an information brief about COVID-19 by phone to a random subsample of participants to address stigma and misconceptions. We find that the information brief decreases stigmatization of COVID-19 patients and certain groups such as religious minorities, lower-caste groups, and frontline workers (healthcare, police), and reduces the belief that infection cases are more prevalent among certain marginalized social and economic groups (Muslims, low caste, rural-poor population). We provide suggestive evidence that improved knowledge about the prevention and transmission of COVID-19 and reduced stress about the disease are important channels for the reduction in stigmatization.

Determinants and dynamics of food insecurity during COVID-19 in rural Bangladesh.

COVID-19 has threatened food security of the poor due to the lockdown of markets amidst poor institutions and lack of social safety nets in the developing world. To provide rapid evidence on the determinants and dynamics of food insecurity and to understand the coping strategies adopted by rural households during the pandemic, we carried out a telephone survey of roughly 10,000 rural households in Bangladesh, three weeks after the country went into lockdown. We found that roughly 90% of households reported experiencing a negative income shock after the countrywide lockdown was implemented. Households that primarily depend on daily casual labor for their income were affected the most, while households with regular jobs were affected the least in terms of food insecurity. Households adversely hit by income shock due to the pandemic were also found to rely more on past savings, food stocks, and loans from various sources to cope with the food crisis. When we followed-up 2402 households, about 3 to 4 weeks after the first survey, to understand the dynamics of food insecurity, we found that food insecurity increased significantly across households and began affecting groups that were in an advantageous position during the first survey. This poses a threat to the poor as food security has already worsened since the crisis hit and would presumably worsen further in the future unless rapid measures are taken to attenuate it at the earliest.

Roommate effects in health outcomes.

We use randomized roommate assignment in dormitories in a college in Kolkata in India to examine peer effects in weight gains among roommates. We use administrative data on weight, height, and test scores of students at the time of college admission and then survey these students at the end of their first and second years in college. We do not find any significant roommate specific peer effect in weight gain. Our results rather suggest that an obese roommate reduces the probability that the other roommates become obese in subsequent years. We examine potential mechanism using survey data on students' eating habits, smoking, exercise, and sleeping patterns. We find that obese roommates sleep longer, which in turn improves the sleep pattern of others, which might explain the weak negative effect of obese roommates on the weight of others in the same room.

Do All Activities "Weigh" Equally? How Different Physical Activities Differ as Predictors of Weight.

In Britain, it is recommended that, to stay healthy, adults should do 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity every week. The recommendations provided by the U.K. government, however, remain silent in regard to the type of activity that should be done. Using the annual Health Survey for England we compare how different types of physical activities predict a person's weight. In particular, we consider clinically measured body mass index and waist circumference. We document mean slopes emanating from ordinary least squares regressions with these measures as the dependent variables. We show that individuals who walk at a brisk or fast pace are more likely to have a lower weight when compared to individuals doing other activities. Additionally, we highlight that the association between physical activity and weight is stronger for females and individuals over the age of 50. Our overall conclusions are robust to a number of specifications.