PERSPECTIVE pubs.acs.org/est
Why Do People Choose What They Choose? And, Do They Use What They Choose? S E SS S S S &T’s Top Policy Paper 2010S Barbara Booth*
W
hen Jeff Albert attended a WHO-sponsored symposium on household water treatment in Beijing in 2006, he and Aquaya cofounder Ranjiv Khush noticed participants “energetically debating” explanations for low adoption of point-of-use water treatments. But, Albert and Khush realized that they “had not seen any rigorous field research assessing consumer preferences for these products among the developing world poor.” With this as motivation, Albert enlisted David Levine, UC Berkeley. With experience in the measurement of consumer behavior, Levine was looking for opportunities to study decisionmaking by low-income consumers regarding health-related goods. Levine recruited Jill Luoto, a Ph.D. student in economics at Berkeley, currently at the Rand Corporation. The resulting paper has been named ES&T’s Top Policy Paper of 2010: “End User Preferences for an Performance of Competing POU Water Treatment Technologies among the Rural Poor of Kenya” by Jeff Albert, Aquaya Institute, San Francisco, California; Jill Luoto, Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics, and David Levin, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es1000566). “Too often we see another 'miracle water treatment device’ in the media. The problem is that these devices work well in the laboratory, but their success depends upon one crucial moving part: the user. There is a real dearth of research into which sorts of water treatment methods users will adopt and into the relationship between user adoption and the local cultural values around water. This paper, I r 2011 American Chemical Society
hope, will inspire a research agenda which has so far been neglected” says Ronan Conroy, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. According to Albert “Point-of-Use [POU] water products include an array of filters and chemical disinfectants that households can use to remove or inactivate microbial pathogens. These products have great potential because they empower the poor to render their drinking water safe. Production, distribution, and sale of POU products also may provide a commercial opportunity. At the same time, with the exception of boiling in some regions, large populations have not adopted safe water products in the way they have adopted, say, cellular telephones.” The study took place in Western Kenya. It set competing products against one another, comparing use of, effectiveness, and preference for three products: a dilute sodium hypochlorite solution (“Waterguard”), a disinfectant flocculant combination (PUR), and a dual chamber gravity-driven silver coated porous ceramic filter. Enumerators visited 400 households, presenting information on each product, providing each household a twomonth free trial of each product. “This paper highlights the challenges of introducing household level treatment technologies meant to remedy health disparities that are ultimately governed by human behavior. These technologies, when implemented in the context of holistic community development strategies and health education, will eventually result in systemic improvements in global health. It appears that the “keep it simple” axiom applies in this case with ceramic filters being preferred despite the somewhat inferior, yet adequate, performance shown during the time scale of the study,” says Craig Just, University of Iowa. “We were fortunate enough to work with the Kisumu office of CARE Kenya, whose personnel (specifically Sam Ombeki and Gordon Oluoch) have been involved in field research in water and sanitation for many years. Their committed and experienced field staff members were instrumental in executing this complex study. We feel particularly blessed to have worked with such an amazing team (see photo by Jill Luoto) of enumerators and technicians based in Bondo town (not far from the ancestral home of President Obama): Salome Aoko, Maureen Mbolo, Akabo Mutuli, Davis Ochieng, Emeldah Orowe, Susan Leah Osanjo, and George Spencer Wambiya.” Brad Lang, at the time of our work an MBA student and former Peace Corps volunteer in this part of Kenya, played an essential role in the initial field coordination of the study says Albert. The team has completed a similar study in Bangladesh among urban poor, a very different population.
’ AUTHOR INFORMATION Corresponding Author
*
[email protected].
Published: March 30, 2011 2522
dx.doi.org/10.1021/es2004683 | Environ. Sci. Technol. 2011, 45, 2522–2522
