Bennett, Daniel, Naqvi, Syed Ali Asjad, Schmidt, Wolf-peter. 2015. Learning, Hygiene, and Traditional Medicine. AEA The Allied Social Science Associations (ASSA) 2015 Annual Meeting, Boston, Vereinigte Staaten/USA, 03.01-05.01.

RIS

@CONFERENCE{Bennett2015,
title = {Learning, Hygiene, and Traditional Medicine},
author = {Daniel Bennett and Syed Ali Asjad Naqvi and Wolf-peter Schmidt},
year = {2015},
address = {Boston},
url = {https://www.aeaweb.org/Annual_Meeting/index.php},
language = {EN},
misc = {AEA The Allied Social Science Associations (ASSA) 2015 Annual Meeting},
abstract = {The provision of health information, which is a common public health strategy, is only effective if the information is credible. Infectious disease prevention messages that invoke the germ theory may fail to persuade people who are unfamiliar with microbes. A novel program in rural Pakistan supplements conventional hygiene instruction by demonstrating with a microscope that microbes exist. Through a randomized evaluation, we show that this program leads to strong and lasting improvements in Hygiene and health for participants as well as their friends and family, while instruction alone does not. Adherence to traditional medicine, which offers another, non-pathogenic disease model, may undermine hygiene learning by strengthening prior beliefs. We show that hygiene and health improve less for believers in traditional medicine, while the intervention modestly weakens traditional beliefs. These results suggest that traditional and modern beliefs are substitutes and that traditional medicine may exacerbate the burden of infectious disease.},
}