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coronavirus disease 2019
WEST, CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019
Efforts to vaccinate populations in Africa against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been challenging. Despite having adequate supplies of the vaccines in many African countries, vaccination rates in Africa have remained quite low. By 4 July 2022, Africa had administered 41 COVID-19 vaccine doses per 100 population, compared to 154 for the rest of the worldThe COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of understanding whether financial incentives are an effective policy tool for promoting vaccinationsIn this context, we ran a clustered RCT with 6,963 residents in the six rural Ghana districts of Gomoa West, Asikuma Odoben Brakwa, Twifo Atti-Morkwa, Assin North, Asuogyaman and Upper Manya Krobo. The trial assesses whether financial incentives produce substantial increases in COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Our pre-registered hypothesis was that people receiving either a low or high cash incentive would have higher vaccination rates than individuals in the placebo treatment; we also expected them to have higher vaccination uptake than those viewing a standard health message related to COVID-19. An additional hypothesis was that high cash incentives would have a larger effect on vaccine uptake than low cash incentives.We measured three outcomes: vaccination intention (immediately after treatment); reported vaccination (2 months after treatment); and verified vaccination status. Our expectation was that the hypothesized treatment effects would be observed in the case of all three outcome variables.