Trauma Survivor Reintegration Cash Transfer Conditionality and Mental Health Symptom Trajectories in Ugandan Post-Conflict Districts: A Target-Trial Emulation of Graduation Timing Rules

Conditional cash transfers for trauma-affected populations in post-conflict northern Uganda typically tie graduation from the programme to a fixed calendar date, yet the timing of exit may interact with the trajectory of mental health symptoms in ways that current evaluation designs cannot detect. Because no primary observational data were available, the study characterises the operating characteristics of a before-after-control-impact estimator under a declared variance structure with an intraclass correlation of 0.64, between-cluster standard deviation of 6.0 and residual standard deviation of 4.5. Power was estimated across 2000 replications per design cell for cluster counts of 8, 16, 24 and 32 and effect sizes of 3, 5 and 8 percentage points. The analysis indicates that 54 clusters would be required to detect a 5 percentage point effect at 80 per cent power, a requirement that exceeds the cluster counts typically available in district-level reintegration programming. Graduation timing rules should be evaluated through target-trial emulation with explicit specification of the assignment mechanism, and that the before-after-control-impact design is underpowered for the effect sizes plausibly generated by conditionality adjustments in this setting. The contribution is a methodological framework and a power analysis that together specify the conditions under which graduation timing effects can be credibly identified.