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  • 2022
  • Working Paper

Behavioral Transmission

By: Reshmaan Hussam and Dayea Oh
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
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Abstract

Behavior change programs, including much of early education curricula, assume the positive transmission of behavior from one context to another. We randomize a hand hygiene edutain-ment program in schools in Bangladesh to trace school-to-home transmission of handwashing behavior and randomize the proportion of students who receive handwashing resources at home to track home-to-school transmission. We find that children induced to wash more at home exhibit less washing at school. Likewise, children induced to wash more at school wash less at home. This negative transmission spills over to other household members and non-school days, such that the cumulative impact of school edutainment on total washing is negative and potentially substantial: treated children exhibit higher rates of respiratory infection and loose stool, though these estimates are imprecise. Our results are consistent with the mechanisms of crowd-out, cue-based habit formation, and ‘reverse’ vertical transmission of behavior. They highlight an unintended consequence of behavior change interventions, like those often imple- mented in education, that presume complementarities in behavior across contexts but evaluate effects only at the site of intervening. contexts.

Keywords

Handwashing; Interventions; Public Health; Health; Behavior; Change; Bangladesh

Citation

Hussam, Reshmaan, and Dayea Oh. "Behavioral Transmission." Working Paper, January 2022.
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About The Author

Reshmaan N. Hussam

Business, Government and the International Economy
→More Publications

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  • Labor Unions in the United States By: Reshmaan Hussam, Trevor Fetter and Grace Liu
  • The Psychosocial Value of Employment: Evidence from a Refugee Camp By: Reshmaan Hussam, Erin M. Kelley, Gregory Lane and Fatima Zahra
  • Indigenous Wisdom and the Climate Crisis By: Reshmaan Hussam
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