Impact Evaluation Survey of JEEViKA Multisectoral Convergence Initiative in Bihar, 2018
Engaging Women’s Groups to Improve Nutrition
India, 2016 - 2018
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IND_2016-2018_MCI-IE_v02_M
Impact Evaluation Survey of JEEViKA Multisectoral Convergence Initiative in Bihar, 2018
Engaging Women’s Groups to Improve Nutrition
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| India | IND |
Other Household Health Survey [hh/hea]
This Impact Evaluation (IE), a randomized controlled trial, tested the effectiveness of using the women’s self-help group platform of Bihar’s JEEViKA program to address the immediate and underlying determinants of undernutrition among women and children andimprove nutrition outcomes. JEEViKA is a rural livelihoods project, supported by the World Bank in Bihar that supports self-helpgroups (SHGs) – savings and credit-based groups of about 15-20 women, mostly targeted towards those from poor households –with the aim of improving their livelihoods and enhancing household incomes. The JEEViKA Multisectoral Convergence (JEEViKA-MC)pilot, developed by the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society with technical support from the World Bank, was designed to leverage these SHGs to provide two complementary sets of interventions—health and nutrition behavior change communication (BCC) to improve women’s knowledge and household practices, and efforts to improve service access through convergence —alongside the existing core package of JEEViKA. The core JEEViKA interventions include: the organization of rural women into SHGs,training and strengthening the SHGs, federation of the SHGs into Village Organizations (VOs) and Cluster-Level Federations (CLFs),bank linkages for the SHGs and their federations, and improvement of livelihoods and women’s empowerment through extensionservices and related interventions. Within this target population, households with young children, mothers of young children, andpregnant women were the primary focus of the JEEViKA-MC pilot.
The IE assessed changes household knowledge and behaviours, as well as in nutrition outcomes of women and children in the pilot areas as compared to areas that did not receive the two additional interventions. Two rounds of panel data - at baseline conducted in April–May 2016, and at endline conducted in October - November2018, of women with children 6 - 23 months of age at baseline, were used to assess the following outcomes of the JEEViKA MC pilotas compared to non-intervention areas, i.e., areas with only the core JEEViKA interventions.
- The primary outcomes assessed werewomen’s body mass index (BMI) and reported dietary diversity for children aged 6 -23 months.
- Secondary outcomes for womenincluded reported dietary diversity, and health, hygiene, and nutrition knowledge and practices. For children, secondary outcomesincluded anthropometric outcomes, infant and young child feeding practices, and morbidity among children. For households,outcomes included household food security, use of government programs as well as JEEViKA food security-related services, and adoption of hygiene and sanitation practices (including handwashing and use of latrines).
The International Food Policy ResearchInstitute (IFPRI) was contracted to conduct the IE.
Version
Edited, anonymized dataset for public distribution
Coverage
While the JEEViKA program covers the majority of districts in Bihar, the JEEViKA-MC pilot interventions were introduced in 12 village administrative units, called Gram Panchayats (GPs) of Saur Bazaar, Sonbarsa Raj, and Pattarghat blocks of Saharsa district of Bihar.
Producers and sponsors
| Name |
|---|
| The World Bank |
| Name |
|---|
| The World Bank |
Sampling
The impact evaluation used a cluster-randomized controlled trial design. It was conducted across three pilot implementation blocks that had mature self-help groups (i.e. groups formed in 2011). Of the 24 available comparable village administrative clusters, called gram panchayats (GPs), allocated 12 to receive the JEEViKA-MC pilot treatment interventions and another 12 as a comparison group. Cluster randomization was done through simple random sampling. The total number of 120 villages were selected, 60 in each arm. Complete listing of all households in each of these 120 villages was obtained. From this household listing, 25 households were selected as per village that had a woman who:
• belonged to a household where at least one woman was a member of a JEEViKA SHG.
• had at least one child age 6–23 months.
The sampling of 25 households allowed for oversampling of 5 households per village, to ensure that 20 households per village responded to the survey. Thus, the total sample was 20 (HHs per village) 5 (villages per Gram Panchayat) 24 (Gram Panchayats) = 2,400 respondents in total: 1,200 in the control and 1,200 in the treatment arm of the study.
For the baseline survey, 5 villages were chosen at random from each of the 24 Gram Panchayats. In cases where there were fewer than 5 villages per Gram Panchayat all villages in the Gram Panchayat were included in the survey and the number of households per Gram Panchayat was increased.
The same households were surveyed during the endline as well.
The baseline survey was carried out in 131 villages. 2,246 households were interviewed with respondent women who met the sampling criteria—1,164 in the treatment areas and 1,082 in the comparison areas. At endline, 2,246 baseline households were revisited and 2119 could be re-interviewed (those with baseline respondent women available), for an attrition rate of only 5.65 percent. The most common reasons for attrition among the respondents were migration for work, permanent relocation, temporary absence from the village, and death.
Anthropometric data was collected for 2,116 respondent women from the baseline, re-interviewed the mothers of 2,084 index children (35 were not alive), and anthropometric data for 2,006 index children from the baseline was collected. In addition to the index child, if the mother had given birth to one or more children since the baseline, at endline information on the youngest of those children between the ages of 6 and 23 months was collected. There were 805 such youngest children, and anthropometric data were available for all of them, with no dates of birth missing.
Survey instrument
The full set of questionnaires are available for download under the downloads tab.
Data collection
| Start | End | Cycle |
|---|---|---|
| 2016-04-01 | 2016-05-30 | Baseline |
| 2018-10-01 | 2018-11-30 | Endline |
- Face-to-face [f2f]
Data collection was sub-contracted by IFPRI to Oxford Policy Management (OPM) who hired a team of more than 90 enumerators.
Data Access
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Ashi Kohli Kathuria | World Bank |
Example:
Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:
- the Identification of the Primary Investigator
- the title of the survey (including country, acronym and year of implementation)
- the survey reference number
- the source and date of download
Example:
The World Bank. India - Impact Evaluation Survey of JEEViKA Multisectoral Convergence Initiative in Bihar, 2018, Engaging Women’s Groups to Improve Nutrition (MCI-IE Bihar). Ref: IND_2016-2018_MCI-IE_v02_M. Downloaded from [uri] on [date].
Disclaimer and copyrights
The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
Contacts
| Name | Affiliation | |
|---|---|---|
| Ashi Kohli Kathuria | World Bank | akathuria1@worldbank.org |
Metadata production
DDI_IND_2016-2018_MCI-IE_v02_M_WB
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Development Data Group | World Bank | Documentation of the study |
2024-02-12
Metadata version
Version 02 (2024-02-12)
Revised, updated datasets. Added descriptive variable labels and dropped variables with potentially identifying information.