Chapter 7 Quantitative Part 2: Behavioral Overview

In this second of three chapters summarizing the Project RISE quantitative data stream, we provide an overview of health behaviors and factors affecting their uptake. The first goal is to introduce a series of behaviors that will be analyzed in the following chapter about influencers. The focal behaviors here are coded into biomedical (recommended or not-recommended) and neutral and we examine variation in the responses for each sample, ASHAs and Mothers. This identifies the role of lived-experience, as we learn more about ASHA-mother differences and how ASHAs approach behaviors compared to other sources of influence, as well as the connectedness of behaviors.

We also look at how interaction with ASHAs affects overall uptake of recommended behaviors and we make an initial estimation of how differentials in caste, religion, and wealth between ASHAs and Mothers might limit service delivery. We find that ASHA interaction has a positive effect on the uptake of biomedically recommended behaviors. The analysis here is meant to set the stage for the following chapter, where we take a close look at the role of different influencers affecting adherence with biomedical recommendations.