Effect of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Mobile Payments for Maternal Health: Regression Discontinuity Analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the unprecedented popularity of digital financial services for contactless payments and government cash transfer programs to mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic. The effect of the pandemic on the use of digital financial services for health in low- and middle-income countries, however, is poorly understood.

Objective

This study aimed to assess the effect of the first COVID-19 lockdown on the use of a mobile maternal health wallet, with a particular focus on delineating the age-dependent differential effects, and draw conclusions on the effect of lockdown measures on the use of digital health services.

Methods

We analyzed 819,840 person-days of health wallet use data from 3416 women who used health care at 25 publi

SUBMITTER: Knauss S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11322714 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature