Cross-Contextual Spillovers in Behavior Change

Format:Print
| Language:English

Abstract

We study the process of behavior change across contexts in the setting of hand hygiene in rural Bangladesh. We randomize an education intervention across classrooms to trace school-to-home spillovers in handwashing and randomize the proportion of students who receive handwashing resources at home to track home-to-school spillovers. Children who are induced to wash more at school exhibit substantially lower washing at home, and children who are induced to wash more at home exhibit substantially less washing at school. Our results suggest that successfully promoting behavior in one environment may crowd-out like behavior in another, potentially more important, environment, underscoring an unintended consequence of public health campaigns and early childhood education programs that typically assume complementarity in behavior change across contexts.