Scholars@Duke
Manoj Mohanan

Manoj Mohanan

Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Programs
Sanford School of Public Policy
manoj.mohanan@duke.edu
Box 90245, Durham, NC 27708
123 Sanford Building, Box 90245, Durham, NC 27708

Scholarly Works

Beyond the individual: Household activity of daily living limitations, urban-rural residence, and mental health.

Journal article SSM. Mental health · December 2025 Activity of daily living (ADL) limitations, such as difficulty walking or dressing, are increasing as populations age and experience more chronic conditions. To understand the scope of ADLs and make interventions more effective, it is important to examine ... Full text Cite

Investigating the know-do gap in antibiotics prescribing: Experimental evidence from India.

Journal article Science advances · September 2025 Antimicrobial resistance is largely driven by overuse of antibiotics, which is particularly common in low- and middle-income countries. We combine provider knowledge assessments and over 2000 anonymous standardized patient visits to providers in India to e ... Full text Cite

The changing association between pandemic-related stressors and child and adolescent mental health during the waning phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Journal article Scientific reports · October 2024 This study examined the relation between pandemic-related stressors and mental health among young people (YP) in India during two time points in the waning phase of the pandemic. We use data from two cross-sectional waves of over 20,000 YP aged 5-19 in Feb ... Full text Cite

Comparing population-level humoral and cellular immunity to SARS-Cov-2 in Bangalore, India.

Journal article Scientific reports · March 2024 Two types of immunity, humoral and cellular, offer protection against COVID. Humoral protection, contributed by circulating neutralizing antibodies, can provide immediate protection but decays more quickly than cellular immunity and can lose effectiveness ... Full text Cite

What drives poor quality of care for child diarrhea? Experimental evidence from India.

Journal article Science (New York, N.Y.) · February 2024 Most health care providers in developing countries know that oral rehydration salts (ORS) are a lifesaving and inexpensive treatment for child diarrhea, yet few prescribe it. This know-do gap has puzzled experts for decades. Using randomized experiments in ... Full text Cite

Does the market reward quality? Evidence from India.

Journal article International journal of health economics and management · September 2023 There are two salient facts about health care in low and middle-income countries; (1) the private sector plays an important role and (2) the care provided is often of poor quality. Despite these facts we know little about what drives quality of care in the ... Full text Cite

Visualizing COVID Restrictions: Activity Patterns Before, During, and After COVID-19 Lockdowns in Uttar Pradesh, India.

Journal article Socius · 2022 Globally, restrictions implemented to limit the spread of COVID-19 have highlighted deeply rooted social divisions, raising concerns about differential impacts on members of different groups. Inequalities among households of different castes are ubiquitous ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Prevalence of COVID-19 in Rural Versus Urban Areas in a Low-Income Country: Findings from a State-Wide Study in Karnataka, India

Journal article University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper · July 28, 2021 Cite

India's COVID-19 crisis: a call for international action.

Journal article Lancet (London, England) · June 2021 Full text Cite

Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Karnataka, India.

Journal article JAMA · March 2021 Featured Publication Full text Cite

Can individuals’ beliefs help us understand nonadherence to malaria test results? Evidence from rural Kenya

Journal article Review of Development Economics · February 1, 2021 Featured Publication In malaria-endemic countries about a quarter of test-negative individuals take antimalarials (artemisinin-based combination therapies [ACTs]). ACT overuse depletes scarce resources for subsidies and contributes to parasite resistance. As part of an experim ... Full text Cite

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in slums versus non-slums in Mumbai, India.

Journal article The Lancet. Global health · February 2021 Featured Publication Full text Cite

Different Strokes for Different Folks? Experimental Evidence on the Effectiveness of Input and Output Incentive Contracts for Health Care Providers with Varying Skills†

Journal article American Economic Journal Applied Economics · January 1, 2021 A central issue in designing incentive contracts is the decision to reward agents' input use versus outputs. The t rade-off between risk and return to innovation in production can also lead agents with varying skill levels to perform differentially under d ... Full text Cite

Information and Facilitation Interventions for Accountability in Health and Nutrition: Evidence from a Randomized Trial in India

Journal article Economic Research Initiatives at Duke (ERID) Working Paper · December 31, 2020 Featured Publication Cite

Does improving appropriate use of malaria medicines change population beliefs in testing and treatment? Evidence from a randomized controlled trial.

Journal article Health Policy Plan · June 1, 2020 Featured Publication A major puzzle in malaria treatment remains the dual problem of underuse and overuse of malaria medications, which deplete scarce public resources used for subsidies and lead to drug resistance. One explanation is that health behaviour, especially in the c ... Full text Link to item Cite

Improving rational use of ACTs through diagnosis-dependent subsidies: Evidence from a cluster-randomized controlled trial in western Kenya.

Journal article PLoS Med · July 2018 BACKGROUND: More than half of artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) consumed globally are dispensed in the retail sector, where diagnostic testing is uncommon, leading to overconsumption and poor targeting. In many malaria-endemic countries, ACTs sold o ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Touching beliefs: Using touchscreen technology to elicit subjective expectations in survey research.

Journal article PloS one · January 2018 When making decisions under uncertainty, individuals may form subjective expectations about probabilities of events relevant for their choice. Accurate measurement of subjective expectations is critical for high-quality data needed to analyze individual be ... Full text Cite

Multitasking and Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in Pay-for-Performance in Health Care: Evidence from Rwanda

Journal article American Journal of Health Economics · May 1, 2017 Featured Publication Performance-based contracting is particularly challenging in health care, where multiple agents, information asymmetries and other market failures compound the critical contracting concern of multitasking. As performance-based contracting grows in develop ... Open Access Cite

Personality Traits and Performance Contracts: Evidence from a Field Experiment among Maternity Care Providers in India

Conference American Economic Review · May 1, 2017 We study how agents respond to performance incentives according to key personality traits (conscientiousness and neuroticism) through a field experiment offering financial incentives for improving maternal and neonatal health outcomes to rural Ind ... Full text Cite

Innovative public-private partnership to target subsidised antimalarials: a study protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate a community intervention in Western Kenya.

Journal article BMJ Open · March 20, 2017 INTRODUCTION: There are concerns of inappropriate use of subsidised antimalarials due to the large number of fevers treated in the informal sector with minimal access to diagnostic testing. Targeting antimalarial subsidies to confirmed malaria cases can le ... Full text Link to item Cite

Enhancing quality of medical care in low income and middle income countries through simulation-based initiatives: Recommendations of the Simnovate Global Health Domain Group

Journal article BMJ Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning · March 1, 2017 Background Quality of medical care in low income and middle income countries (LMICs) is variable, resulting in significant medical errors and adverse patient outcomes. Integration of simulation-based training and assessment may be considered to enhance qua ... Full text Cite

Effect Of A Large-Scale Social Franchising And Telemedicine Program On Childhood Diarrhea And Pneumonia Outcomes In India.

Journal article Health affairs (Project Hope) · October 2016 Featured Publication Despite the rapid growth of social franchising, there is little evidence on its population impact in the health sector. Similar in many ways to private-sector commercial franchising, social franchising can be found in sectors with a social objective, such ... Full text Cite

Quality Of Health Care In India: Challenges, Priorities, And The Road Ahead.

Journal article Health affairs (Project Hope) · October 2016 India's health care sector provides a wide range of quality of care, from globally acclaimed hospitals to facilities that deliver care of unacceptably low quality. Efforts to improve the quality of care are particularly challenged by the lack of reliable d ... Full text Cite

Multitasking and Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in Pay-for-Performance in Health Care: Evidence from Rwanda

Journal article Economic Research Initiatives at Duke (ERID) Working Paper · March 1, 2016 Cite

Assessing the independent and combined effects of subsidies for antimalarials and rapid diagnostic testing on fever management decisions in the retail sector: results from a factorial randomised trial in western Kenya.

Journal article BMJ Glob Health · 2016 Featured Publication OBJECTIVES: There is an urgent need to understand how to improve targeting of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) to patients with confirmed malaria infection, including subsidised ACTs sold over-the-counter. We hypothesised that offering an antimalarial ... Full text Link to item Cite

Providers' knowledge of diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis using vignettes: Evidence from rural Bihar, India

Journal article BMJ Global Health · January 1, 2016 Background: Almost 25% of all new cases of tuberculosis (TB) worldwide are in India, where drug resistance and low quality of care remain key challenges. Methods: We conducted an observational, cross-sectional study of healthcare providers' knowledge of di ... Full text Cite

The know-do gap in quality of health care for childhood diarrhea and pneumonia in rural India.

Journal article JAMA pediatrics · April 2015 Featured Publication ImportanceIn rural India, as in many developing countries, childhood mortality remains high and the quality of health care available is low. Improving care in such settings, where most health care practitioners do not have formal training, require ... Full text Cite

Causal Effects of Health Shocks on Consumption and Debt: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Bus Accident Injuries

Journal article Review of Economics and Statistics · May 2013 Endogeneity between health and wealth presents a challenge for estimating causal effects of health shocks. Using a quasi-experimental design, comprising exogenous shocks sustained as bus accident injuries in India, with controls drawn from travelers on the ... Cite

Causal Effects of Health Shocks on Consumption and Debt: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Bus Accident Injuries

Journal article Review of Economics and Statistics · May 2013 Featured Publication Full text Cite

In urban and rural India, a standardized patient study showed low levels of provider training and huge quality gaps.

Journal article Health Aff (Millwood) · December 2012 This article reports on the quality of care delivered by private and public providers of primary health care services in rural and urban India. To measure quality, the study used standardized patients recruited from the local community and trained to prese ... Full text Link to item Cite

Quasi-experimental evidence on the causal effects of physical health on mental health.

Journal article Int J Epidemiol · April 2010 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: While a large body of literature has demonstrated an association between physical health problems and psychiatric ones, the extent to which one is causally linked to the other remains difficult to estimate. This quasi-experimental study seeks t ... Full text Link to item Cite

Growth of private medical education in India.

Journal article Med Educ · October 2006 BACKGROUND: Medical education has grown in India in nearly 6 decades since independence, but no quantitative assessment of this growth exists. DISCUSSION: We examine the growth of medical education institutions in India, especially in the private sector, a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Medical Education in India: Implications for access to care and its quality

Journal article Journal of Educational Planning and Administration · 2006 Cite