Person: Creighton, Jessica
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Creighton
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Jessica
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Creighton, Jessica
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Publication An Approach to Small-Scale Mixed-Methods Experimentation; Transparency for Development, Phase 2(Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation) Kosack, Stephen; Creighton, Jessica; Tolmie, CourtneyFaced with a promising but complex intervention, how can further refinement be evaluated? The typical approach is experimentation. Rigorously evaluated experimentation, for several centuries the province mostly of medicine and related research, is today a reality in a variety of fields of social science and practice. Its primary form, the randomized controlled trial (RCT), stems from its medical roots. By design, RCTs are a highly specialized instrument of inquiry: they seek reliability by focusing on a simple, singular causal relationship. Their relevance typically depends on the relevance of this causal relationship and whether it can be accurately represented and measured in one treatment or in a handful of modifications (or “arms”). But the growth of experimentation has brought randomized controlled trials into evaluations of complex interventions in policy areas like health care, education, water, or sanitation, which often occur at the group or society level, at a large scale, and the implementation of which can take myriad forms. For precisely evaluating the benefits of complex programs, RCTs remain the gold standard, frequently used when, for example, a health or education program is under consideration for scaling, is already being done at large scale but is of uncertain benefit, or is almost perfected save for a very specific design question. But often large-scale randomized controlled trials of complex interventions are inappropriate. For an intervention whose benefit is already widely accepted, they may be too expensive; for one whose benefit is uncertain, they may be too large-scale. When, for whatever reason, evaluation of a complex intervention is important but small-scale experimentation is more appropriate than a full randomized controlled trial, how might further refinement of that intervention be most rigorously and reliably evaluated?Publication Transparency for Development: Project Results & Implications(Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, 2021-01) Fung, Archon; Arkedis, Jean; Creighton, Jessica; Kosack, Steve; Levy, Dan; Tolmie, CourtneyThe Transparency for Development (T4D) project was launched in 2013 to try to answer these challenging questions and to make sense of a highly mixed evidence base. Ultimately, we sought to design research that could provide useful and actionable guidance to policymakers, donors, and practitioners alike seeking to improve the effectiveness of their work.Publication Transparency for Development: Pre-Analysis Plan(2018-04) Bombyk, Matthew; Creighton, Jessica; Dixit, Akshay; Levy, Dan; Roots, LindseyThe goal of the analysis described here is to identify the effects of the Transparency for Development program intervention on a range of maternal health and community participation outcomes as well as intermediate or process outcomes. The plan pre-specifies the analysis that will be conducted, before comparing outcomes between treatment and control groups. It outlines the intervention, evaluation design, data sources, hypotheses and outcomes of interest, and the impact estimation strategy. By committing to pre-specified analysis plans we hope to minimize issues of data mining and specification searching. The pre-analysis plan serves the dual purpose of ensuring the endline data collection tools are sufficient for the planned analysis. This plan was written and submitted after baseline data collection and the implementation of the intervention, but prior to the start of endline data collection.Publication Transparency for Development: Evaluation Design Report(Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, 2015-02) Arkedis, Jean; Creighton, Jessica; Fung, Archon; Kosack, Stephen; Levy, Dan; Naimpally, Rohit; Tolmie, CourtneyThe Transparency for Development Evaluation Design Report describes the mixed methods evaluation design for the Transparency for Development project as of February 2015 – just before the start of the first data collection activities associated with the project (baseline data collection in Indonesia). Since the writing of this report, a number of changes have been made to the design. For the most recent details, visit t4dproject.org.Publication The effects of a place-based intervention on resident reporting of crime and service needs: A frontier matching approach(Harvard Kennedy School, 2023-12) Dickens, Eleanor; Greifer, Noah; Robb, Katharine; Marcoux, Ashley; Creighton, Jessica; Allegar, Charles; de Jong, JorritObjectives: Prior research has found that reporting behavior of crime incidents and service needs remain low in many U.S. cities, which may be improved by place-based interventions. This study investigates whether a place-based intervention combining door-to-door education, outreach, rapid beautification, and community-oriented law enforcement can affect reporting of crime (through emergency 911 calls) and service needs (through non-emergency 311 calls). Methods: This study employs a matching strategy using observational data from a large public repository to generate effect estimates of a place-based intervention on reporting of 911 and 311 calls. Matching is conducted using the matching frontier with an energy-distance balance metric, which allows for fine managing of the balance-precision tradeoff. Results are analyzed by overall call volume and individual sub-types. Results: Findings indicate that treated households were 32% more likely to report a drug-related crime than untreated households within 3 months of the intervention and 42% more likely within 5.5 months compared to untreated households. In examining calls related to blight, treated households were 9% more likely to report a blight incident than untreated households within 3 months of the intervention, with similar results within 5.5 months. There was no evidence of differences in reporting of other crime or service needs between treated and untreated households. Conclusions: This research fills an important gap in the literature by not only investigating the impact of a place-based intervention with reporting as the outcome variable, but also by assessing whether it is effective to bring together components of other interventions previously studied in isolation. The results of this study suggest that highly visible place-based interventions that build relationships between residents and institutions may have a relationship to reporting behavior, particularly for drug-related crime and blight-related service reporting.Publication Can Transparency and Accountability Programs Improve Health? Experimental Evidence from Indonesia and Tanzania(Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2019-05) Arkedis, Jean; Creighton, Jessica; Dixit, Akshay; Fung, Archon; Kosack, Stephen; Levy, Dan; Tolmie, CourtneyWe assess the impact of a transparency and accountability program designed to improve maternal and newborn health (MNH) outcomes in Indonesia and Tanzania. Co-designed with local partner organizations to be community-led and non-prescriptive, the program sought to encourage community participation to address local barriers in access to high quality care for pregnant women and infants. We evaluate the impact of this program through randomized controlled trials (RCTs), involving 100 treatment and 100 control communities in each country. We find that on average, this program did not have a statistically significant impact on the use or content of maternal and newborn health services, nor the sense of civic efficacy or civic participation among recent mothers in the communities who were offered it. These findings hold in both countries and in a set of prespecified subgroups. To identify reasons for the lack of impacts, we use a mixed-method approach combining interviews, observations, surveys, focus groups, and ethnographic studies that together provide an in-depth assessment of the complex causal paths linking participation in the program to improvements in MNH outcomes. Although participation in program meetings was substantial and sustained in most communities, and most attempted at least some of what they had planned, only a minority achieved tangible improvements and fewer still saw more than one such success. Our assessment is that the main explanation for the lack of impact is that few communities were able to traverse the complex causal paths from planning actions to accomplishing tangible improvements in their access to quality health care.Publication Transparency for Development Baseline Report(Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, 2016-09) Arkedis, Jean; Creighton, Jessica; Fung, Archon; Kosack, Stephen; Levy, Dan; Naimpally, Rohit; Roots, Lindsey; Tolmie, CourtneyThis baseline report describes the baseline data collection activities, baseline findings and revised primary outcomes for the impact evaluation of phase one of the Transparency for Development (T4D) project. The report is broken into five chapters. Chapter I describes the T4D intervention and evaluation, and situates the project within the broader context of the fields of transparency and accountability (T/A) and maternal and neonatal health (MNH). Chapter II describes the T4D data collection process, including a description of the survey tools, sampling strategy, and how data were cleaned and prepared. Chapter III presents the baseline findings for the T4D communities in Indonesia and Tanzania. It also describes how these findings were used to revise the evaluation design. Chapter IV details the T4D impact evaluation design. This chapter includes details on random assignment and verification of balance on observable variables between treatment and control villages, a listing of primary outcomes by research question, and the T4D impact estimation strategy. Finally, chapter V presents conclusions and next steps. This chapter is organized as follows: Section 1 describes the current state of MNH worldwide, and in Tanzania and Indonesia specifically. It explores the use of transparency and accountability (T/A) interventions to improve MNH and positions the T4D project within this debate. Section 2 provides a detailed description of the T4D intervention, including its underlying logic model. Section 3 describes the T4D evaluation, in which the impact evaluation (the primary topic of this report) plays a major role.Publication Insights from Transparency and Accountability Action Plans in Indonesia and Tanzania(Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, 2020-01) Creighton, Jessica; Arkedis, Jean; Fung, Archon; Kosack, Steve; Levy, Dan; Tolmie, CourtneyThis paper provides insight into community designed and led actions in Indonesia and Tanzania that were prompted by Transparency for Development (T4D), a six-year research project that explores whether, how, and in what conditions “transparency and accountability” or “social accountability” programs improve maternal and newborn health care. We find that all communities participating in the T4D program planned social actions, with the vast majority completing at least one action. We also find that the focus of the actions was diverse in nature, though participants in nearly every community planned at least one action aimed at educating members of the community. We compare actions designed in Indonesia to those in Tanzania and find a number of similarities and differences in the types of actions designed and whether the actions were completed. When analyzed from a social accountability lens, we find three trends. Firstly, the actions were overwhelmingly collaborative in nature. Secondly, the majority of the actions were short route, meaning they targeted the health facility or provider directly, rather than government officials higher up the accountability chain. Finally, when classified by accountability “type” we find that more than half of communities took a self-help approach, with only about a quarter pursuing solutions through social accountability channels.