Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The WHO has recently debated whether to reaffirm its long-standing recommendation of mass drug administration (MDA) in areas with more than 20 percent prevalence of soil-transmitted helminths (hookworm, whipworm, and roundworm). There is consensus that the relevant deworming drugs are safe and effective, so the key question facing policymakers is whether the expected benefits of MDA exceed the roughly USD 0.30 per treatment cost. The literature on long run educational and economic impacts of deworming suggests that this is the case. However, a recent meta-analysis by Taylor-Robinson and others (2015), (hereafter TMSDG), disputes these findings. The authors conclude that while treatment of children known to be infected increases weight by 0.75 kg (95 percent CI: 0.24, 1.26; p=0.0038), there is substantial evidence that MDA has no impact on weight or other child outcomes. This paper updates the TMSDG analysis by including studies omitted from that analysis and extracting additional data from included studies, and finds that the TMSDG analysis is underpowered: Power is inadequate to rule out weight gain effects that would make MDA cost effective relative to comparable interventions in similar populations, and underpowered to reject the hypothesis that the effect of MDA is different from the effect that might expected, given deworming's effects on those known to be infected. The hypothesis of a common zero effect of multiple-dose MDA deworming on child weight at longest follow-up is rejected at the 10 percent level using the TMSDG dataset, and with a p value < 0.001 using the updated sample. In the full sample, including studies in settings where prevalence is low enough that the WHO does not recommend deworming, the average effect on child weight is 0.134 kg (95 percent CI: 0.031, 0.236, random effects). In environments with greater than 20 percent prevalence, where the WHO recommends mass treatment, the average effect on child weight is 0.148 kg (95 percent CI: 0.039, 0.258). The implied average effect of MDA on infected children in the full sample is 0.301 kg. At 0.22 kg per U.S. dollar, the estimated average weight gain per dollar is more than 35 times that from school feeding programs as estimated in RCTs. Under-powered meta-analyses are common in health research, and this methodological issue will be increasingly important as growing numbers of economists and other social scientists conduct meta-analysis.

Cost-Effectiveness --- Deworming --- Meta-Analysis --- Nutrition

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

In 2004, a landmark study showed that an inexpensive medication to treat parasitic worms could improve health and school attendance for millions of children in many developing countries. Eleven years later, a headline in the Guardian reported that this treatment, deworming, had been "debunked." The pronouncement followed an effort to replicate and re-analyze the original study, as well as an update to a systematic review of the effects of deworming. This story made waves amidst discussion of a reproducibility crisis in some of the social sciences. This paper explores what it means to "replicate" and "reanalyze" a study, both in general and in the specific case of deworming. The paper reviews the broader replication efforts in economics, then examines the key findings of the original deworming paper in light of the "replication," "reanalysis," and "systematic review." The paper also discusses the nature of the link between this single paper's findings, other papers' findings, and any policy recommendations about deworming. This example provides a perspective on the ways replication and reanalysis work, the strengths and weaknesses of systematic reviews, and whether there is, in fact, a reproducibility crisis in economics.

Data Access --- Deworming --- Disease Control and Prevention --- Early Child and Children'S Health --- Education --- Education for All --- Educational Populations --- Educational Sciences --- Health --- Health Care Services Industry --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Industry --- Meta-Analysis --- Nutrition --- Pharmaceuticals and Pharmacoeconomics --- Pharmaceuticals Industry --- Public Health --- Public Health Promotion --- Replication --- Reproductive Health --- Robustness --- School Health --- Systematic Review --- Worms