Do you listen to your sister, your father, or your doctor? Or when the doctor says, you need this drug everyday, for the rest of your life, is there still a lingering doubt – maybe it’s commercial interest ?
Whom do we trust on things that take up an important part of our lives – read “WATER” here?
High Arsenic water having no visible difference.
A recent study shows that people continue consuming the same water , even if warned that it may cause cancer. Surprising, is it ?
How do behaviors change ? Is there an inner voice that keeps looking for the more comforting choice, irrespective of the consequences.
And what can really break that ?
We did an experiment in Assam with 4 villages, which have high Arsenic in water that can cause Cancer.
People seem to be continuing with their habits of consuming high Arsenic water and some simple lifestyle change could counter this: consuming drinking water that is supplied through a pipeline; or adding Iron nails to their household slow sand filter.
We did something interesting across these 4 villages. In the first two villages, the water operator, or the village ASHA health worker, went around with a basic video, that demonstrates the risk from Arsenic in water and what change they need to bring.
In the remaining two villages, we did the same thing ie one village with a water operator, and the other with an ASHA health worker, but with a small change; the video now had a doctor speaking in it.
The results surprised us. In general, people seem to trust and change behaviours when advised by the ASHA health worker, more than when advised by the Water operator.
However, when the ASHA health worker has the video with a doctor in it, the impact is extraordinary. More than 300% people additionally converted (from the baseline case of water operator with a basic video) and changed their Behaviours, showing significant difference from all the other three villages.
Household sand filter with Iron nails
The larger picture is truly bleak as the recent study shows. But what our experiment tells us is this:
The messenger is important – It is about who brings you the message and not only the message itself.
Secondly, the source of information, when authentic (here , the doctor), people trust more.
