Neha Kumar
Biographic Data
| ID | 3582177 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Neha Kumar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Neha |
| FAMILY NAME | Kumar |
| SIGNATURE | KUMAR N |
| AFFILIATIONS | International Food Policy Research Institute |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7982-3277 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 55 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 155 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 55 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Women's experiences of the food environment and their association with fruit and vegetable intake
This analysis examined associations between factors in the food environment and fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake among women living in rural Northern Tanzania. We used cross-sectional data from 2597 women and 1275 food sources. Women's self-reported factors included buying frequency, sources, availability, and convenience. We also measured women's access to F&V sources using geospatial measures of distance and time from home to the reported typic…
Navigating India and Taiwan relations amid China’s maritime modernization
Post-Growth HCI
The Feminization of Migration and Mental Health of Older Parents Left Behind
With female outmigration for work on the rise, it becomes pertinent to examine how the evolving gender composition of labor migrant streams influences the well-being of those left behind at origin. This study investigates whether a daughter's outmigration for work distinctly affects the mental health of older parents left behind, drawing on the case of Indonesia — one of the largest sources of male and female migrant labor in the world. It uses i…
Who Can Have a Baby? Social Norms and the Right to Reproduce
Childbearing norms and discourse influence social interactions and policy priorities, reflecting and reinforcing social stratification. We propose a theoretical framework that systematically explains stratification and discrimination in childbearing norms. The theory of socially sanctioned reproduction (TSSR) emphasizes how childbearing and reproductive norms are shaped by individual and intersectional attributes of both evaluators and those eval…
Individual interventions, collective lessons
Background: Interventions with women's groups have been widely implemented to improve health outcomes in low- and middle-income settings, particularly India. While there is a large evidence base on the effectiveness of single interventions, it is challenging to predict whether a women's group intervention delivered in one setting can be expected to work in another. Methods: We applied realist principles to develop and refine a mid-range theory on…
Nurturing Community and Leadership in Cape Town
No abstract available
Enhancing agency and empowerment in agricultural development projects
Development interventions increasingly include women's empowerment and gender equality among their objectives, but evaluating their impact has been stymied by the lack of measures that are comparable across interventions. This paper synthesizes the findings of 11 mixed-methods impact evaluations of agricultural development projects from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa that were part of the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2 (GAAP2…
Women improving nutrition through self-help groups in India
Women's self-help groups (SHGs) are an important platform for reaching poor women in India. Despite SHGs' women-focused programming, evidence of the impact of SHG-based interventions on nutrition outcomes is limited, and most evaluations of nutrition interventions have not examined intermediate outcomes along the impact pathways or outcomes for women themselves. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of an integrated agriculture-nutrition interve…
Fertility Intentions During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Recognizing the prolonged, uneven, and evolving nature of the Covid-19 pandemic, this study provides one of the first dynamic, multilevel perspectives of women's fertility intentions in response to the pandemic and its multifaceted impacts. We examine how evolving individual- and community-level Covid-19 risk mechanisms and socioeconomic and life-course conditions are associated with continuity and change in women's fertility intentions. We combi…
An impact of content delivery, equity, support and self-efficacy on student’s learning during the Covid-19
Scale and Sustainability
Microfinance groups are a prominent source of small-scale rural credit in many developing countries. In India, evidence of the impact of the now ubiquitous women-only savings and credit self-help groups (SHGs) on household consumption and asset accumulation is inconclusive and based on small-scale interventions. Further, little is known about the sustainability of impacts at scale. We use panel data on close to 2500 households from five states in…
ReCHInnected
No abstract available
With HCI and Friends
No abstract available
SIGCHI's FY24 Budget
No abstract available
Learning together
India accounts for a large proportion of the global prevalence of maternal and child undernutrition, and recent trends have renewed the call for large-scale concerted efforts to improve outcomes. With their reach to millions of rural Indian women, self-help groups (SHGs) offer a possible solution. We provide evidence from a cluster-randomized controlled trial in the state of Bihar of the impact of a health and nutrition intervention that provided…
Theater of India-China strategic rivalry
The strategic importance of the Indian Ocean is increasing in the world in general and in India’s sub-continent in particular. The Indian Ocean is world’s third largest water body on the surface of the Earth and has increasingly become an area of contention between India and China. As their power, interests, capabilities, and economy increases, the competition between the two Asian giants also increases. This competition has the potential to enda…
Nutrition-sensitive agriculture programs increase dietary diversity in children under 5 years
BACKGROUND: Low-quality diets contribute to the burden of malnutrition and increase the risk of children not achieving their developmental potential. Nutrition-sensitive agriculture programs address the underlying determinants of malnutrition, though their contributions to improving diets do not factor into current nutrition impact modeling tools. OBJECTIVE: To synthesize the evidence on the effectiveness of nutrition-sensitive agriculture progra…
The economic costs of a multisectoral nutrition programme implemented through a credit platform in Bangladesh
Bangladesh struggles with undernutrition in women and young children. Nutrition-sensitive agriculture programmes can help address rural undernutrition. However, questions remain on the costs of multisectoral programmes. This study estimates the economic costs of the Targeting and Re-aligning Agriculture to Improve Nutrition (TRAIN) programme, which integrated nutrition behaviour change and agricultural extension with a credit platform to support …
A chronology of SIGCHI conferences
Conferences form the backbone of SIGCHI. They are the reason we exist as a collective entity and a special interest group. They connect us and bring us together as a community of human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers, educators, students, and practitioners. In this article, we take stock of SIGCHI's portfolio of conferences, offering a snapshot of their histories toward better understanding our eclectic knowledge commitments and intertwine…
Citational justice and the politics of knowledge production
research-article Share on Citational justice and the politics of knowledge production Authors: The Citational Justice Collective View Profile , Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed University of Toronto University of TorontoView Profile , Sareeta Amrute University of Washington and Data & Society University of Washington and Data & SocietyView Profile , Jeffrey Bardzell Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania State UniversityView Profile , Shaowen Bardzell Pe…
Elevating strengths and capacities
As researchers working in different subareas within human-computer interaction, but with a shared commitment to work with communities facing historical inequities, we the collective authors have been keen to explore alternative approaches to designing with communities. In particular, we are enthusiastic about moving away from focusing on a community’s needs toward building on its strengths [[]1]
Low-carbon transition risks for India’s financial system
Covid-19, nutrition, and gender
Working in lockdown
Social Protection, Food Security, and Asset Formation
The last two decades have seen a rapid rise in social protection programs and studies that assess their impacts on a large number of domains. We construct a new database of studies of these programs that report impacts on food security outcomes and asset formation. Our meta-analysis finds that social protection programs improve both the quantity and quality of food consumed by beneficiaries. The magnitudes of these effect sizes are meaningful. Th…
The power of the collective empowers women
Women’s groups are important rural social and financial institutions in South Asia. In India, a large majority of women’s groups programs are implemented through self-help groups (SHGs). Originally designed as savings and credit groups, the role of SHGs has expanded to include creating health and nutrition awareness, improving governance, and addressing social issues related to gender- and caste-based discrimination. This paper uses panel data fr…
Social networks, mobility, and political participation
Women’s self-help groups (SHGs) have increasingly been used as a vehicle for social, political, and economic empowerment as well as a platform for service delivery. Although a growing body of literature shows evidence of positive impacts of SHGs on various measures of empowerment, our understanding of ways in which SHGs improve awareness and use of public services is limited. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper first examines how SHG membershi…
Ex ante and ex post effects of hybrid index insurance in Bangladesh
This study assesses both the demand for and effectiveness of an index insurance product designed to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh manage crop production risk during the monsoon season. Villages were randomized into either an insurance treatment or a comparison group, and discounts and rebates were randomly allocated across treatment villages to encourage insurance take-up and to allow for the estimation of the price-elasticity of insuran…
Beyond “Death Do Us Part”
Policy Reform toward Gender Equality in Ethiopia
There is growing interest in how reforms in different policy areas can be formulated in order to be consistent in promoting gender equality and empowering women. We use data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS) to show how two seemingly unrelated reforms—community-based land registration, undertaken since 2003, and changes in the Family Code implemented in 2000—may have created conditions that reinforce each other in improving gender …
Gendered impacts of the 2007–2008 food price crisis
Offspring's labor migration and its implications for elderly parents' emotional wellbeing in Indonesia
Facebook for self-empowerment? A study of Facebook adoption in urban India
This article presents an ethnographic study of the adoption and use of Facebook among urban Indian youth from socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. Mobile-centric use of the Internet is widely prevalent here as general packet radio service (GPRS)-enabled mobile phones and data plans have become increasingly affordable. Less privileged youth are the lead adopters of these new technologies, and typically the first generation of Internet user…
Bargaining power, decision making, and biofortification
We examine the role of gender dimensions of intrahousehold bargaining power and decision making in the adoption and diffusion of orange sweet potato (OSP), a biofortified crop being promoted to increase dietary intakes of vitamin A in Uganda. We use patterns of ownership and control of land and other assets by married men and women to create gender-disaggregated indicators of bargaining power, allowing for joint and sole ownership and control of …
State-led or market-led green revolution? Role of private irrigation investment vis-a-vis local government programs in West Bengal's farm productivity growth
Fertility Intentions During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Recognizing the prolonged, uneven, and evolving nature of the Covid-19 pandemic, this study provides one of the first dynamic, multilevel perspectives of women's fertility intentions in response to the pandemic and its multifaceted impacts. We examine how evolving individual- and community-level Covid-19 risk mechanisms and socioeconomic and life-course conditions are associated with continuity and change in women's fertility intentions. We combi…
Enhancing agency and empowerment in agricultural development projects
Development interventions increasingly include women's empowerment and gender equality among their objectives, but evaluating their impact has been stymied by the lack of measures that are comparable across interventions. This paper synthesizes the findings of 11 mixed-methods impact evaluations of agricultural development projects from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa that were part of the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2 (GAAP2…
Learning together
India accounts for a large proportion of the global prevalence of maternal and child undernutrition, and recent trends have renewed the call for large-scale concerted efforts to improve outcomes. With their reach to millions of rural Indian women, self-help groups (SHGs) offer a possible solution. We provide evidence from a cluster-randomized controlled trial in the state of Bihar of the impact of a health and nutrition intervention that provided…
Demand for Complementary Financial and Technological Tools for Managing Drought Risk
Innovations that mitigate weather-related production risks can potentially benefit farmers in risk-prone areas. We examine two distinct tools for managing drought risk: (1) weather index insurance and (2) a drought-tolerant (DT) rice variety. Although these tools can independently address drought risk, we demonstrate the additional benefits gained by bundling them into a complementary product. Results suggest that farmers are generally unwilling …
Randomized controlled trials of multi-sectoral programs
Development is a multi-faceted process; achieving development goals thus requires a multi-sectoral approach. For over two decades, our research group of economists and nutritionists has designed and implemented randomized trials to assess the effectiveness of multisectoral programs in improving nutrition, food security, and other measures of well-being, largely at the request of developing country governments, development partners, and non-govern…
Engaging China's Nuclear and Missile Threat
The relationship between India and China is guided by mistrust and competition, despite their trade dependence and geographical proximity. India is more conscious of China's nuclear and missile modernization because India's forces lack strategic depth against China. China has strategic doctrine, planning and resources, while India lacks in all these. China also helped Pakistan, which is a crucial point for India to note. This article tries to fin…
Gendered impacts of the 2007–2008 food price crisis
Beyond “Death Do Us Part”
State-led or market-led green revolution? Role of private irrigation investment vis-a-vis local government programs in West Bengal's farm productivity growth
Facebook for self-empowerment? A study of Facebook adoption in urban India
This article presents an ethnographic study of the adoption and use of Facebook among urban Indian youth from socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. Mobile-centric use of the Internet is widely prevalent here as general packet radio service (GPRS)-enabled mobile phones and data plans have become increasingly affordable. Less privileged youth are the lead adopters of these new technologies, and typically the first generation of Internet user…
Policy Reform toward Gender Equality in Ethiopia
There is growing interest in how reforms in different policy areas can be formulated in order to be consistent in promoting gender equality and empowering women. We use data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS) to show how two seemingly unrelated reforms—community-based land registration, undertaken since 2003, and changes in the Family Code implemented in 2000—may have created conditions that reinforce each other in improving gender …
If They Grow It, Will They Eat and Grow? Evidence from Zambia on Agricultural Diversity and Child Undernutrition
In this article we address a gap in our understanding of how household agricultural production diversity affects the diets and nutrition of young children living in rural farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa. The specific objectives of this article are to assess: (1) the association between household agricultural production diversity and child dietary diversity; and (2) the association between household agricultural production diversity and …
The gender-technology divide or perceptions of non-use
There exists a widely acknowledged gender divide in rural India that is perceived to complicate, often cripple, women’s access to various new media technologies, including mobile devices that their male counterparts have been using for several years. My research takes a deeper look at this divide to offer a more nuanced understanding that extends beyond the dualism of use and non-use and deconstructs the popular notions that rural Indian women ar…
Microinsurance Decisions
Most index-based insurance products have been developed without giving explicit attention to gender. However, there is ample of evidence that shocks affect men and women differently and that they allocate resources in different ways. In Bangladesh, it is often assumed that women are less involved in agriculture, and, therefore, agricultural insurance might not be of interest to rural women. However, this assumption has not been tested in the fiel…
Usability, tested
This forum addresses conceptual, methodological, and professional issues that arise in the UX field's continuing effort to contribute robust information about users to product planning and design. --- David Siegel and Susan Dray, Editors
Crossing borders, building bridges
forum Share on Crossing borders, building bridges Authors: Neha Kumar Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of TechnologyView Profile , Susan Dray Dray & Associates Dray & AssociatesView Profile Authors Info & Claims InteractionsVolume 24Issue 3May + June 2017 pp 42–47https://doi.org/10.1145/3058494Published:27 April 2017Publication History 5citation457DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations5Total Downloads457Last 12 Months99Last 6 weeks21 Ge…
Social Protection, Food Security, and Asset Formation
The last two decades have seen a rapid rise in social protection programs and studies that assess their impacts on a large number of domains. We construct a new database of studies of these programs that report impacts on food security outcomes and asset formation. Our meta-analysis finds that social protection programs improve both the quantity and quality of food consumed by beneficiaries. The magnitudes of these effect sizes are meaningful. Th…
The human infrastructure of El Paquete, Cuba's offline internet
column Public Access Share on The human infrastructure of El Paquete, Cuba's offline internet Authors: Michaelanne Dye Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of TechnologyView Profile , David Nemer University of Kentucky University of KentuckyView Profile , Josiah Mangiameli Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of TechnologyView Profile , Amy Bruckman Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of TechnologyView Prof…
It's getting real. Virtually real
This is a forum for perspectives on designing for communities marginalized by economics, social status, infrastructure, or policies. It will discuss design methods, theoretical and conceptual contributions, and methodological engagements for underserved communities. --- Nithya Sambasivan, Editor
Social networks, mobility, and political participation
Women’s self-help groups (SHGs) have increasingly been used as a vehicle for social, political, and economic empowerment as well as a platform for service delivery. Although a growing body of literature shows evidence of positive impacts of SHGs on various measures of empowerment, our understanding of ways in which SHGs improve awareness and use of public services is limited. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper first examines how SHG membershi…
Ex ante and ex post effects of hybrid index insurance in Bangladesh
This study assesses both the demand for and effectiveness of an index insurance product designed to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh manage crop production risk during the monsoon season. Villages were randomized into either an insurance treatment or a comparison group, and discounts and rebates were randomly allocated across treatment villages to encourage insurance take-up and to allow for the estimation of the price-elasticity of insuran…
Intersectional computing
column Share on Intersectional computing Authors: Neha Kumar Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of TechnologyView Profile , Naveena Karusala University of Washington University of WashingtonView Profile Authors Info & Claims InteractionsVolume 26Issue 2March - April 2019 pp 50–54https://doi.org/10.1145/3305360Published:22 February 2019Publication History 21citation1,333DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations21Total Downloads1,333Last 12 Mo…
Randomized controlled trials of multi-sectoral programs
Development is a multi-faceted process; achieving development goals thus requires a multi-sectoral approach. For over two decades, our research group of economists and nutritionists has designed and implemented randomized trials to assess the effectiveness of multisectoral programs in improving nutrition, food security, and other measures of well-being, largely at the request of developing country governments, development partners, and non-govern…
Community interventions with women’s groups to improve women’s and children’s health in India
Encountering feminisms across borders
column Share on Encountering feminisms across borders Author: Neha Kumar Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of TechnologyView Profile Authors Info & Claims InteractionsVolume 27Issue 6November - December 2020 pp 46–48https://doi.org/10.1145/3427217Published:02 November 2020Publication History 1citation691DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations1Total Downloads691Last 12 Months131Last 6 weeks22 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!Thi…
SIGCHI's quick response in a time of crisis
No abstract available
Beyond the portal
This is a forum for perspectives on designing for marginalized communities worldwide. Articles will discuss design methods, theoretical/conceptual contributions, and participatory interventions with underserved communities. --- Nithya Sambasivan, Editor
Globally yours
No abstract available
Bargaining power, decision making, and biofortification
We examine the role of gender dimensions of intrahousehold bargaining power and decision making in the adoption and diffusion of orange sweet potato (OSP), a biofortified crop being promoted to increase dietary intakes of vitamin A in Uganda. We use patterns of ownership and control of land and other assets by married men and women to create gender-disaggregated indicators of bargaining power, allowing for joint and sole ownership and control of …
Demand for Complementary Financial and Technological Tools for Managing Drought Risk
Innovations that mitigate weather-related production risks can potentially benefit farmers in risk-prone areas. We examine two distinct tools for managing drought risk: (1) weather index insurance and (2) a drought-tolerant (DT) rice variety. Although these tools can independently address drought risk, we demonstrate the additional benefits gained by bundling them into a complementary product. Results suggest that farmers are generally unwilling …
Economics (25 works) · Computer Science (22 works) · Political science (19 works) · Business (17 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Geography (16 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Agriculture (11 works) · Economic growth (11 works) · Medicine (11 works)