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Erratum to “can Information Alone Change Behavior? Response to Arsenic Contamination of Groundwater in Bangladesh”

Malgosia Madajewicz
Columbia University, United States

Alexander Pfaff
Columbia University, United States

Alexander van Geen
Columbia University, United States

Joseph Graziano
Columbia University, United States

Iftikhar Hussein
National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), Dhaka, Bangladesh

Hasina Momotaj
National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), Dhaka, Bangladesh

Roksana Sylvi
National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), Dhaka, Bangladesh

Habibul Ahsan
Columbia University, United States

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

We study how effectively information induces Bangladeshi households to avoid a health risk. The response to information is large and rapid; knowing that the household's well water has an unsafe concentration of arsenic raises the probability that the household changes to another well within one year by 0.37. Households who change wells increase the time spent obtaining water fifteen-fold. We identify a causal effect of information since the incidence of arsenic is uncorrelated with household characteristics. Our door-to-door information campaign provides well-specific arsenic levels without which behavior does not change. Media communicate general information about arsenic less expensively and no less effective. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Information, Health risk, Arsenic, Drinking water

Location: In Bangladesh

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Risk Management in Agriculture

Commodity: Arsenic, Groundwater

Objectives:

To study how effectively information induces Bangladeshi households to avoid a health risk.

Methodology:

We provide a simple one-period model which determines how much safe water an individual seeks. The model suggests a way to measure WTP for avoiding the consumption of unsafe water. An individual maximizes her utility, which is a function of her health, subject to a budget and a time constraint. The measure of health is the number of days of work or school missed because of illness, h(d,b), where d is the effective exposure to arsenic, and b is the amount of medical intervention sought to reduce the effects of arsenic. Effective exposure to arsenic, d(a,sq,st) depends on a, the amount of arsenic in the water the individual consumes, sq, the quantity of safe water which the individual purchases, and st, the amount of time which the individual spends obtaining safe water, e.g. by walking further for water. The distinction between sq and st allows the cost of obtaining safe water to have components which have different prices, the market price of water and the opportunity cost of time respectively. We can write the number of days missed as h(a,sq,st,b). In general, safe water may require both monetary compensation and an investment of time. In our context, the quantity of safe water purchased may be thought of as water from a new well, which must be installed and maintained, or water from a well belonging to a neighbor, who has to be compensated for the use of the water, or water from a community well, which requires a contribution to the community. However, respondents report that they do not pay money for water, but rather compensate the owner of the well in kind and that the compensation is voluntary and not large.9 Therefore, the primary cost of changing to a well which is not one's own is likely to be the opportunity cost of time incurred by having to walk further for water. Seventy-six percent of households who change to another well change to a well which is not their own. Our data allows only a partial estimation of what expression (3) suggests. We estimate the WTP for the average change in arsenic resulting from a change to a different well by a household whose baseline well is unsafe. We do not know to which well the household changed for enough households to determine the resulting change in arsenic levels. Second, we estimate only two components of WTP, the value of additional time spent walking for water as a result of the change to another source and the value of this and all other costs of the new source as reflected in the difference between household expenditures of those households who change and those who do not among those whose baseline wells are unsafe. We may underestimate WTP, because we do not observe the first and the fourth terms on the right-hand side of Eq. (3) in addition to the last term.

Source of Information: Journal of Development Economics 84 (2007) 731–754

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

Our principal finding is that information alone can rapidly induce a large percentage of people who face a risk to health to change their behavior in order to avoid the risk, even if the change is costly. The important implication is that investment of public resources in providing information can be effective even when resources for a more elaborate intervention, such as alternative sources of water, are lacking. We provide information about the concentration of arsenic in the water in people's wells. Having an unsafe well increases the probability that the person changes to another well within one year by 0.37. Furthermore, those who change to another well to avoid arsenic increase the time they spend walking for water fifteen-fold. The response to information is striking since few people were sick from arsenic at the time of our survey and switching to another well is costly. The crucial effect of our house-to-house information campaign was to provide information specific to the individual, whether her/his well is safe and which wells in the vicinity are safe. Ninety-eight percent of people in our study area know whether their well is safe, while 20% claim to know in control areas. People exposed only to the media information campaign have not obtained well tests and they have not sought safe water. The media communicate general information about arsenic no less effectively and less expensively than does the door-to-door campaign. This is surprising since only two-thirds of households own a TV or a radio and few people read newspapers. The contrast between our results and prior literature raises an important question for future research; under what circumstances is a large and rapid change in behavior in response to information likely to occur? One potential explanation is the influence which neighbors have on each others' behavior. If such influence is strong, even if only a few people are convinced of the need to act, their behavior may spread through the community. Such strong effects may help design information campaigns which target only a few people in a group. Explaining the effect we observe requires understanding which components of our intervention were crucial in eliciting the behavioral response. For example, would a media campaign together with a well test yield the same outcome, or did other parts of our intervention such as the repeated surveys and the daily contact between residents and project staff promote a sense of urgency about the problem? The earth scientists involved in the Araihazar study are documenting the percentage of people who change to another well in areas in which well tests were conducted by the Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Supply Project in addition to the media campaign. Their data may help to shed light on the question. A number of questions remain for future research.

Knowledge Management: Journal