Motivating volunteer health workers in an African capital city

Mattia Fracchia, Teresa Molina-Millan and Pedro Vicente

NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA

Abstract: Community Health Workers (CHWs) are central to health systems. Still, they are typically unpaid volunteers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper follows all the CHWs in the capital city of Guinea-Bissau and tests the impact of different types of non-financial incentives on health indicators. We analyze two randomized interventions for CHWs: (i) an honorific award aimed at raising their social status; (ii) a video treatment aimed at increasing their perceived task significance. While employing administrative and survey data, we find that the social status intervention, differently from the task significance one, causes clear improvements in household health, particularly for young children.

Keywords: Non-financial incentives; motivation; Community Health Workers; social status; task significance; Guinea-Bissau; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 I15 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 83 pages
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Motivating volunteer health workers in an African capital city (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unl:novafr:wp2109

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