Empowering Girls: Health-seeking Behavior, Staying in School, and Preventing Risky Sex

Empowering Girls: Health-seeking Behavior, Staying in School and Preventing Risky Sex

This study will test the effectiveness of a phone-based big sister/big brother program designed to provide health information and support, reduce school dropouts, and promote safer relationships.

The program's goal is to create a phone-based safe space, to ensure adolescents remained connected with access to support and health information during COVID lockdowns.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Pregnancy Related; Behavior, Health
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Low tech health Phone + SMS messages; Behavioral: Low tech health SMS messages

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 2000
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Noam Angrist, PhD; Phone Number: +18572250117; Email: nangrist@young1ove.org
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Claire Cullen, PhD; Phone Number: +447562665937; Email: ccullen@young1ove.org

Study Locations

• Botswana
  • Gaborone, Botswana
    • Recruiting
    • Young 1ove
    • Contact: Efua Bortsie; Email: ebortsie@young1ove.org

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 10 years to 25 years (ADULT, CHILD)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Adolescent who provided their phone number to Young 1ove staff when prompted by their school; or their siblings/ other adolescents living in the same household.
• Parents and students consented to participate.

Exclusion Criteria:

-

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: PREVENTION
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: SINGLE

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
NO_INTERVENTION: Control
EXPERIMENTAL: Phone-based intervention Plus SMS messages	Behavioral: Low tech health Phone + SMS messages; Weekly health-related phone calls plus SMS messages are provided to adolescents.
EXPERIMENTAL: SMS messages only	Behavioral: Low tech health SMS messages; Weekly health-related SMS messages are provided to adolescents.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Share of students that have been or are pregnant and/or have dropped out of school	These two outcomes (using school administrative data on whether students have dropped out of school and were pregnant) will be combined into a composite variable equal to 1 if the student has become pregnant and/or has dropped out of school.	~6 months post-program
Share of students with the accurate belief that older partners have the highest risk of HIV compared to younger partners.	Indicator variable from the survey question wording: "Who do you think has the highest risk of infecting you with HIV?"	~4 weeks post program

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Share of students reporting that they make the final decision in their life about visiting a Sexual and reproductive health clinic	Indicator variable from the survey question response	~4 weeks post program
Share of students reporting that if they or their partner were pregnant, they would tell the data collector	Indicator variable coded 1 if student answered likely or very likely to 'If you were pregnant, how likely would you be to tell me?'	~4 weeks post program

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Share of students disclosing personal information to the data collector in the open-ended question at the end of the survey.	~4 weeks post program
Share of female students reporting that they agree or strongly agree with the statement 'If I don't want to hold hands with a guy, I can comfortably refuse to do it'	~4 weeks post program
Share of students listing known support services when asked 'If a friend experienced dating difficulties or violence, do you know any organizations, services or phone numbers you could suggest she contact to get some help if she wanted?'	~4 weeks post program

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Young 1ove
• Collaborators: University of Oxford
• Investigators: Study Chair: Noam Angrist, PhD, University of Oxford

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): April 28, 2020
• Primary Completion (ANTICIPATED): October 20, 2021
• Study Completion (ANTICIPATED): October 20, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 11, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 19, 2021
• First Posted (ACTUAL): August 26, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): August 26, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 19, 2021
• Last Verified: August 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: Y1HPDME2021

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No