The Medium-term Effects of Home-based Early Childhood Development Intervention Impact Evaluation 2013
Second Midline Survey
Colombia, 2013
Get MicrodataIdentification
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| Colombia | COL |
There are currently three waves of data, a baseline, pre-intervention wave collected between February and June 2010, and a follow-up wave 18 months later between September and December 2011, at the end of the intervention period. The second wave of follow-up data collection occurred 2 years after the first follow-up data collection between September and December 2013.
Version
This version of the data is identical to version 1.0, aside from revisions made to update labeling for a few variables and to remove some empty variables as well.
Scope
The scope of this study includes:
- A household survey covering topics including:
- Module 1 (Housing and Home): Location and identification, housing characteristics, health, distances, expenses, other revenues and transfers, incidents in the past 18 months, participation in “Familias en Accion," food consumption of children in the household (for children between 6 months and 6 years), family structure, children born in last two years not living
- Module 2 (Education, Work, and Health): Education, health, work
- Module 3 (Children Less Than 6 Years): Institutional and non-institutional care, historical care arrangements
- Module 3a (Annex for Module 3 - Target Child): Interaction with biological parents (if don't live at home), health, morbidity, quality of home environment, Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ), Strength and Difficulties Questionnaires (SDQ), time use
- Module 3b (Annex for Module 3 - Younger Sibling): Quality of home environment, health, morbidity, MacArthur-Bates (8-18 months), MacArthur-Bates (19-30 months), MacArthur-Bates (31-48 months), use of language
- Module 4 (Biological Mother): Time use, health, empowerment, contraception and reproductive history, knowledge of child development, birth and breastfeeding of biological children, physical development of biological children
- Module 5 (Primary Caregiver): Education, health, work, time use, knowledge of child development
- Module 6 (Home Inventory): Home inventory to assess the quality of the family environment
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A community survey covering topics including shocks, services, wages, and prices.
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Assessments of outcomes of the target child, the mother of the target child, and younger siblings.
Coverage
This project covered 96 small towns in central Colombia, representing a large number of small communities across a relatively big geographical area. It exploited structures in place from the government's Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, Familias en Accion (FeA), which targets the poorest 20% of households in the country.
The universe of the target population is given by households who are eligible to receive the government's Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, Familias en Accion (FeA), which targets the poorest 20% of households in the country.
Producers and sponsors
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Orazio Attanasio | University College London |
| Alison Andrew | Institute For Fiscal Studies |
| Marta Rubio-Codina | Institute For Fiscal Studies |
| Emla Fitzsimons | Institute For Fiscal Studies |
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund | The World Bank |
| Name | Abbreviation |
|---|---|
| Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund | SIEF |
Sampling
The survey used a randomized experimental design to obtain rigorous and unbiased estimates of the impact of the stimulation and nutrition interventions, and of their interaction.
The beneficiaries of Familias en Accion periodically elect a female representative, called the Madre Lider (ML). We randomly selected three from each town (municipality), and then from the families represented by the ML we randomly selected 5 children aged 12 to 24 months to be eligible for the intervention. Within each municipality, eligible households were randomly allocated (at the municipality level) to each of the following treatment arms:
- Control
- Stimulation + Supplementation
- Stimulation
- Supplementation
These MLs were then asked to take on the role of home visitor to implement the intervention of the different treatment arms. However, a significant proportion (nearly 40%) of the MLs either opted out or were not deemed suitable for the role, in which case they were replaced following their recommendations. In order to maintain the randomization of the design, the families attached to the original ML were maintained, even if in the end she was not the actual home visitor.
The stimulation intervention consisted of weekly visits to the homes of the target children, each visit lasting around one hour. The home visitors received a three week training programme in activities designed to stimulate children at different ages. They also received a weekly curriculum as a guide, and a set of locally produced materials (homemade toys from recycling material, picture books, puzzles, etc.).
The supplementation arm consisted of providing daily sachets of multiple micronutrient powder to mothers, via the home visitors, to add to the target child’s food. Sachets were designed to provide iron (12.5mg), zinc (5mg), Vitamin A (300 μg retinol equivalent), Vitamin C (30mg) and folic acid (160 μg) for the children targeted.
Survey instrument
This study included four main sources of data: a Household Survey, a Community Survey, Intervention Data, and Child Developmental Assessments.
Household Survey:
This collected information on the household and on household members in a set of modules (questionnaires) administered by interviewers. Separate questionnaires were asked at household and individual levels. At the individual level there are several standalone modules for the mother, children under six years old, the target child of the intervention, the main care giver, and the home visitor. The modules contain a rich variety of data: the home environment and composition of the household; education and health; employment and time use etc. There are also a series of modules on child development. The questionnaires for each of the modules are provided in Spanish and are available to download.
Community Survey:
This collects the information at the municipality level included in the questionnaire “community” and includes information on shocks, services, wages, prices. The questionnaire is provided in Spanish and is available to download.
Assessment of Outcomes of the Target Child:
In additional to the information collected in the questionnaires administered by interviewers at the household level, the target children also attended a centre where her developmental level was assessed by a trained psychologist using a variety of assessments:
· Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody (TVIP) to assess receptive language
· Daberon (modified) to assess school readiness
· Pencil Tapping Task to assess executive functioning
· Wolke to assess Emotional tone, activity, co-cooperativeness, approach
· Woodcock-Munoz Achievement 14 to assess expressive language
· Woodcock-Munoz Cognitive 5 to assess fluid reasoning/fluid intelligence
· Woodcock-Munoz Cognitive 6 to assess visual perception/processing speed
· Woodcock-Munoz Cognitive 12 to assess fluid reasoning
· Woodcock-Munoz Cognitive 13 to assess visual perception/spatial memory
· Woodcock-Munoz Cognitive 16 to assess speed processing
· Woodcock-Munoz Cognitive 21 to assess long term memory
Assessments for Mother:
In the test centre we also performed some assessments with the mother of the target child:
· Raven's progressive matrices to measure IQ
· CES-D 10 point depression scale
· Big Five to measure personality traits
Assessments for Younger Siblings:
We used the ASQ-3 to assess child developmental levels of the younger siblings. This assessment occurred in the household. The questionnaire is provided in Spanish and is available to download.
Data collection
| Start | End | Cycle |
|---|---|---|
| 2013-09-01 | 2013-12-31 | Second Follow-up |
- Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]
Six professionals were chosen among a number of applicants on the basis of their CV and an interview. They were trained in child development, home visiting and the curriculum for over one and a half months. The training also included practicing home visits in Soacha. These professionals, who will be referred to as “mentors” in what follows, then had the task to train the home visitors in the field – i.e. teach them the curriculum and the approach to home visiting – and mentor/supervise them throughout the intervention. To this end, each of them was assigned 8 towns, for a total of 24 home visitors each.
The training of the home visitors was split across two workshops. The first, lasting two weeks, covered the first part of the stimulation curriculum (activities for children ages 12 to 30 months) along with the fundaments of child development, the importance of adequate care and stimulation, and toy construction workshops. Once this first round of training was completed, the home visitors were deemed ready to start the visits. This process took place at the same time as data collection (being careful in each village to ensure data collection had taken place before the intervention started), from February through June 2010, so by the end of June 2010 the intervention was fully phased-in across all treatment villages. The second phase of the training workshops took place between mid August and mid October 2010 over a one week period. In these sessions, the home visitor and the mentor covered the second half of the curriculum (activities for children aged 30 to 42 months), revised lessons covered in the first workshop, resolved doubts, and discussed any outstanding issues.
After that, the six mentors became, for the rest of the intervention, mentors and supervisors of the home visitors. They traveled around each of their 8 towns, spending up to a week in each, overseeing visits of their assigned home visitors and providing them with advice, training, feed-back, and support. This rotation scheme is such that each home visitor received about a week of interaction with her mentor once every 4-6 weeks. Furthermore, mentors and home visitors are in touch on a regular basis: the home visitors receive weekly to fortnightly telephone calls to discuss progress and problems; they receive weekly text messages to reinforce key messages to be conveyed during home visits, and they receive monthly one-page bulletins that reinforce material covered during training sessions. Overall, the mentors have played a very important role in the intervention.
Access policy
| Is signing of a confidentiality declaration required? |
|---|
| true |
Direct Access
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:
Orazio Attanasio (University College London), Alison Andrew (Institute For Fiscal Studies), Marta Rubio-Codina (Institute For Fiscal Studies), and Emla Fitzsimons (Institute For Fiscal Studies). Colombia - Medium Term Effects of Home-based Early Childhood Development Intervention Impact Evaluation 2013, Second Midline Survey. Ref: COL_2013_ECDIIE-ML2_v02_M. Dataset downloaded from [URL] on [date].
Depositor information
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Laura Becerra Luna | The World Bank |
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
Metadata production
| Name | Abbreviation | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Development Economics Data Group | DECDG | The World Bank |
Documentation of the study |
Metadata version
This version of the study documentation is similar to version 01, but includes revised versions of the datasets that were previously submitted.