What Works to Get the Elderly Vaccinated Against COVID-19? Experimental Evidence From India

National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Status: Completed

Conditions: Aging; Covid19

Treatments: Behavioral: Buddy; Behavioral: Information assigned in community; Behavioral: Information; Behavioral: Buddy assigned in community; Behavioral: Gossip intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04870593

1702861995A021

Details and patient eligibility

About

COVID-19 poses a substantial risk to elderly populations; understanding how to get elders vaccinated against the virus is therefore a policy priority. An experiment with elders in Tamil Nadu, India will be used to evaluate interventions policymakers might use to raise vaccination rates amongst the elderly. The particular interventions being tested are: calling elders to inform them about vaccination; encouragement of a "buddy system," whereby elders are accompanied to the vaccination site by another adult who could also get the vaccine; and seeding vaccination information with "gossips," individuals who elders identify as being good at spreading information in the elders' communities. The interventions are phone-based, and can be implemented quickly and at low cost. This makes them promising strategies the Tamil Nadu government and other governments could use to vaccinate elderly populations against COVID-19.

Enrollment: 3,006 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 55+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• At least 55 years of age
• Has phone number

Exclusion criteria

• Not part of the experiments registered under protocol IDs 223749 or 172020

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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3,006 participants in 8 patient groups

Community receives buddy and gossip treatment, individual informed directly (arm (1))

Experimental group

Description:

(i) Individual elder given vaccination information. (ii) Individual elder encouraged to get vaccinated using "buddy system," whereby he/she is accompanied to the vaccination site by another adult who could also get the vaccine. A potential buddy also given vaccination information and encouraged to help the elder get to the vaccination site so they could both be vaccinated. (iii) Members of elder's community asked who in the community is good at spreading information. These "gossips" then asked to spread information about vaccination of elders and to encourage their communities to use the buddy system to get elders vaccinated.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Gossip intervention

Behavioral: Information

Behavioral: Buddy assigned in community

Behavioral: Information assigned in community

Behavioral: Buddy

Community receives buddy and gossip treatment, individual not informed directly (arm (2))

Experimental group

Description:

Individual elder lives in community with elders in arm (1).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Gossip intervention

Behavioral: Buddy assigned in community

Behavioral: Information assigned in community

Community receives gossip treatment, individual informed directly (arm (3))

Experimental group

Description:

(i) Individual elder given vaccination information. (ii) Members of elder's community asked who in the community is good at spreading information. These "gossips" then asked to spread information about vaccination of elders.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Gossip intervention

Behavioral: Information

Behavioral: Information assigned in community

Community receives gossip treatment, individual not informed directly (arm (4))

Experimental group

Description:

Individual elder lives in community with elders in arm (3).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Gossip intervention

Behavioral: Information assigned in community

Community receives buddy treatment, individual informed directly (arm (5))

Experimental group

Description:

(i) Individual elder given vaccination information. (ii) Individual elder encouraged to get vaccinated using "buddy system," whereby he/she is accompanied to the vaccination site by another adult who could also get the vaccine. A potential buddy also given vaccination information and encouraged to help the elder get to the vaccination site so they could both be vaccinated.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Information

Behavioral: Buddy assigned in community

Behavioral: Information assigned in community

Behavioral: Buddy

Community receives buddy treatment, individual not informed directly (arm (6))

Experimental group

Description:

Individual elder lives in community with elders in arm (5).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Buddy assigned in community

Behavioral: Information assigned in community

Community receives information, individual informed directly (arm (7))

Experimental group

Description:

Individual elder given vaccination information.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Information

Behavioral: Information assigned in community

Community receives information, individual not informed directly (arm (8))

Experimental group

Description:

Individual elder lives in community with elders in arm (7).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Information assigned in community