Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Pricing

Varsha Venugopal

👤 Person
886 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

mothers who haven't got high literacy and the kids dropping off vaccinations.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

So the next iteration we are quite keen to introduce is voice recordings to see how they could further reinforce the messaging that's going through the text messages.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

Yeah, no, we absolutely believe in making sure we look at the broad gamut of evidence that's available.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

This is also the additional reason why we are quite keen on introducing the ambassador program along with the SMS reminders, because there seems like the effect sizes with the ambassadors is higher and we want to make sure we can capture some of that impact on the table.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

Yeah, there is quite a fair degree of variation.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

I mean, they're obviously in different regions to begin with, these text reminders.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

Also, in terms of what the exact messaging itself is, is there a feedback loop on whether the child actually got the vaccine?

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

And then is the next reminder that's going out in any way connected to that, etc.?

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

So there was, for each of these studies, we had to apply some of these discounts based on how

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

similar they were to what we were planning to undertake and what that could mean in terms of the effect sizes of our intervention.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

Right.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

So right now at the margin, we estimate we can cover an additional village.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

That's both SMS reminders and ambassadors for eligible parents at around $150 to $200.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

And given each village has about 100 children due for vaccines.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

So what that would mean is for $1,000, we would cover roughly six villages.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

or 600 children.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

So now taking into account the J-PAL study, which in the original paper suggested a 14 percentage point increase in uptake as a result of the ambassador program, we discounted to 10 percentage point increase.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

We think by spending the additional $1,000 and reaching 600 children, we would be reaching an additional 60 children that will be immunized.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

That sounds right.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

Yeah.