Publications
Publications
- 2023
Behavioral Transmission: Evidence from a Public Health Campaign in Bangladesh
By: Reshmaan Hussam and Dayea Oh
Abstract
We examine how behavior change transmits across contexts in the setting of hand hygiene in
rural Bangladesh. We randomize an edutainment intervention across classrooms to trace schoolto-home transmission in handwashing behavior and randomize the proportion of students who
receive handwashing resources at home to track home-to-school transmission. We document
that, while edutainment generates greater washing at school, it leads to substantially less washing at home, such that total washing is net negative. Likewise, children induced to wash more
at home exhibit substantially less washing at school. Our results illustrate that successfully
promoting behavior in one environment may crowd out like behavior in another critical context.
They highlight an unintended consequence of behavior change interventions, like those often
implemented in early childhood education, that assume complementarities in behavior across
contexts.
Keywords
Citation
Hussam, Reshmaan, and Dayea Oh. "Behavioral Transmission: Evidence from a Public Health Campaign in Bangladesh." Working Paper, April 2023.