Social Signaling and Childhood Immunization: A Field Experiment in Sierra Leone.

This article explores the use of social signaling as a policy tool to sustainably affect childhood immunization. In a 26-month field experiment with public clinics in Sierra Leone, I introduce a verifiable signal-in the form of color-coded bracelets-given to children upon timely completion of the first four or all five required vaccinations. Signals increase parents' belief in the visibility of their actions and knowledge of other children's vaccine status.

Health knowledge and non-pharmaceutical interventions during the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa.

Providing health information is a non-pharmaceutical intervention designed to reduce disease transmission and infection risk by encouraging behavior change. But does knowledge change behavior? We test whether coronavirus health knowledge promotes protective risk mitigation behaviors early in the Covid-19 pandemic in samples from four African countries (Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania). Despite reputations for weak health sectors and low average levels of education, health knowledge of the symptoms and transmission mechanisms was high in all countries in the two months after the virus entered the country.