WISE

The Work and Iron Status Evaluation (WISE) seeks to understand how changes in health of an individual affects the economic and social prosperity of the individual, family and community.

The study is a collaboration between researchers at UCLA, University of Gadja Madah, Cornell, RAND, Michigan State and SurveyMETER. The project is funded as part of the National Institutes of Health International Studies in Health and Economic Development network and involves a nutrition supplementation intervention in a study site in Central Java, Indonesia. The intervention started in the middle of 2002 and the study is expected to take 3 years to complete.

The project builds on our experience with the Indonesia Family Life Survey IFLS.

Study design

The goal of the study is to pin down the causal effect of improvements in health on the economic and social prosperity of individuals and their families. Beginning in 2002, about 4,000 households will be interviewed every four months for about 3 years. The first two waves of the survey, will serve as baselines. After the second wave, households will be randomly assigned to one of two groups. Iron supplements will be provided to all members of households assigned to one of those groups. Participants will take the supplements on a weekly basis for a year. It is expected that all participants who are supplemented will be iron replete by the end of the year; most participants will be be replete within 4 to 6 months. The study will measure the effect of supplementation on the well-being of individuals and their families.

Data will be collected at the individual, household and community level. Individual level data will cover time allocation including work and participation in community activities, earnings, self-reported and physical health and cognitiion. All adult household members will be interviewed. Questions about children are answered by a caretaker. Data on wealth and consumption will be collected at the household level. Community resources, services and infrastructure will be gathered along with detailed price data.

Survey instruments

Household questionnaires

  • Baseline (WISE-00) (zipped pdf files)

    Project personnel