The Centre for Experimental Social Sciences (CESS) Nuffield - FLAME University is pleased to welcome Dr. Jan E. Cooper, Postdoctoral Fellow at the MIT Poverty Action Lab, J-PAL South Asia. Dr. Cooper will be presenting her work titled "Women’s Power in Cash Transfer Programs for Health Promotion."


Abstract:


Programs that target poverty and gender-equality hold great promise in improving women’s reproductive and sexual health. However, important questions remain about the combined effect of poverty alleviation and women’s control over income; specifically, about how this synergy can improve reproductive, maternal, and child health. My research on conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to reduce HIV in Tanzania showed that women’s relationship power modified the effectiveness of the CCT on STI incidence. Also, my work with female sex workers in Tanzania suggests that this group of women at high-risk for HIV have different ‘domains’ of empowerment where they had varying levels of control over their economic and sexual decisions. Interestingly, these women reported having the most control over their day-to-day lives, which they leveraged to reduce their risk of HIV in their sex work.


In India, economic incentives have great potential to break the cycle of poverty and improve health outcomes, but these interventions will be successful only if beneficiaries have sufficient control over their immediate circumstances to enact sustained behavior changes. This is particularly true in the case of child health, where women’s relationship power is a key, yet understudied, determinant of the success of incentives for maternal and child health. To that end, my current research; i) explores women’s power in the context of randomized trials of cash transfer interventions for child health, and ii) develops a new instrument to measure women’s empowerment in the context of cash transfer programs for health promotion. 



Bio:


Jan E. Cooper is a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Pascaline Dupas and Seema Jayachandran (Co-Chairs of J-PAL’s Health Sector) on the Cash Transfers for Child Health Initiative (CaTCH). Dr. Cooper’s research focuses on using monetary incentives for health promotion, with a particular focus on the role of women’s decision-making power in cash transfer interventions. Previously, Dr. Cooper worked with UC Berkeley and the World Bank on randomized evaluations of conditional cash transfers to reduce sexually transmitted infections and HIV in Tanzania, and with the Harvard School of Public Health on a randomized clinical trial of the prevention of Mother-to-Child transmission of HIV. Dr. Cooper holds a BA in Philosophy from McGill University, an MPH from Brown University, and a PhD in Population Health Sciences – Health Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.  


For more information about Dr. Cooper, please visit this website.