Less than a third of pregnant women in Zambia seek antenatal care (ANC) in their first trimester. This late initiation of ANC is contributing to Zambia’s high maternal mortality rate, which is disproportionately concentrated in rural areas. In collaboration with the government, a team of local PEP researchers conducted a randomized control trial to evaluate the impact of providing monetary incentives to community-based volunteers (CBVs) for referring or accompanying women to ANC visits within the first trimester of their pregnancies. They found that providing monetary incentives to CBVs significantly increased the number of pregnant women who were accompanied to seek ANC visits in the first trimester as well as the number of facility deliveries, even though the overall number of women seeking first-trimester care did not increase.
Find out more about the research methods, findings and policy recommendations in the following PEP publications:
