Mental Health and Politics in Myanmar

Multidisciplinary Type II Proposal (additional research components added on to an ongoing or recently completed RCT)

In Kayin, Myanmar, our team of social scientists and medical doctors is conducting a randomized control trial with Community Partners International (CPI) and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) to evaluate a psychosocial support program in 90 conflict-affected villages. In addition to pure control villages, we also compare the psychosocial support program to a 'social capital' program in which villagers engage in common activities like cooking, planting, and basket-weaving to disentangle curriculum effects from group effects. Our existing study considers how these treatments affect mental health and wellbeing. Now we propose additional endline measurement—including collecting a novel behavioral measure—to study how service provision shapes political attitudes, civic engagement, and social cohesion.