Information and Persuasion: Achieving Safe Water Behaviors in Kenya

Abstract

This paper considers the disappointing adoption rates of point-of-use (POU) safe water technologies designed to expand access to safe drinking water in the developing world. Low cost POU technologies substantially reduce diarrheal disease (Clasen et al. 2006). Nevertheless, they remain little used in many parts of the developing world, even when widely available. I present results from a randomized field study in Kenya that provided for free a variety of POU technologies in order to test hypothesized informational and behavioral constraints to the widespread use of any POU safe water technology. Sharing water quality information increases water treatment by 8-13 percentage points, representing a 12-23% increase over base values. Framing safe water technologies as both increasing health and avoiding disease (not just increasing health) further increased usage on the order of 4-6 percentage points. A public commitment by respondents to treat water regularly had weak but positive effects overall, but large effects at households that showed "present-biased" responses to hypothetical questions about future payoffs. These results suggest promising avenues for incremental improvements in the market for safe water (and other) technologies. More broadly, they present further evidence against a model of decision making that assumes full information and fully formed preferences. JEL CODES: M31, O33, D81, D83, Q53, D91.

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Impact of a randomized controlled trial in arsenic risk communication on household water-source choices in Bangladesh

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