#2168. Texts dont nudge: An adaptive trial to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in India

July 2026publication date
Proposal available till 30-05-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript3510 $

The title of the journal is available only for the authors who have already paid for
Journal’s subject area:
Information technologies
Health Sciences
Places in the authors’ list:
place 1place 2place 3place 4
FreeFreeFreeFree
1050 $940 $820 $700 $
Contract №2168.1 Contract №2168.2 Contract №2168.3 Contract №2168.4
1 place - free (for sale)
2 place - free (for sale)
3 place - free (for sale)
4 place - free (for sale)

Abstract:
We conduct an adaptive randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of a SMS-based information campaign on the adoption of social distancing and handwashing in Asia, six months into the COVID-19 pandemic. We test 10 arms that vary in delivery timing and message framing, changing content to highlight gains or losses for either ones own family or community. We identify the optimal treatment separately for each targeted behavior by adaptively allocating shares across arms over 10 experimental rounds using exploration sampling. Based on phone surveys with nearly 4,000 households and using several elicitation methods, we do not find evidence of impact on knowledge or adoption of preventive health behavior, and our confidence intervals cannot rule out positive effects as large as 5.5 percentage points, or 16%. Our results suggest that SMS-based information campaigns may have limited efficacy after the initial phase of a pandemic.
Keywords:
Adaptive trial; COVID-19; Health behaviors; Asia; Information and communication; SMS

Contacts :
0