Designing and Evaluating Behavior Change Interventions to Improve the Adoption and Use of Improved Cookstoves

A stove promotion intervention was implemented and randomized at the hamlet level; all sample households living in treatment communities
were visited by sales teams working for a local NGO; households living in control communities were not. Following careful field piloting of potential promotion techniques (Lewis et al., 10 2015), trained sales people working in teams of two visited treatment households and conducted intensive promotion activities with them. First, these teams presented treatment households with an information sheet and explanation of the stove features for the two available options (an electric coil stove and a biomass-burning improved cook stove), even as they performed a live tea-making demonstration. Second, once the demonstration was complete, the sales people proposed a financing plan to households: All households were given the choice of paying for the stoves upfront or in three equal installments (including a modest fi nancing fee of INR 60 or 80, depending on the stove) that would be collected over a period of three installments spread over four weeks.
Third, households were assigned a randomized rebate to be given at the time of the final payment if they were found to be using the stoves (as observed during unannounced visits). Those paying for stoves upfront were also eligible for the rebate and thus were also revisited roughly one month later. Prior to households indicating whether they would purchase a stove, this household-level randomized rebate was revealed by drawing a chit out of a bag. The bags contained equal numbers of chits corresponding to the three potential rebate levels, low - INR 25 (a 2.5% discount), medium - INR 200 (a 20% discount), and high - equivalent to a full installment (a 33% discount). Sales prices prior to the rebate corresponded to the stove-specifi c prices paid to suppliers.
On the basis of power calculations and our estimation of the differential treatment effects expected from the alternative rebate levels, 71 of the baseline hamlets (corresponding to 770 of the 1,061 baseline households) were randomly assigned to the treatment group, and the remaining 26 sample hamlets served as controls, that did not receive any visits from the stove promotion teams.

2013-08-05

2013-10-31

Purchase of improved cookstoves (overall and by technology), and use of improved cookstoves.

Not applicable

Impacts of intervention and stove adoption on solid fuel consumption, cooking time, collection time, and self-reported health.

Baseline surveys followed by intervention and then short-term follow-up surveys, in a sample of 1061 households living in 98 hamlets.
Hamlet-level randomization of intervention to 71 hamlets (with 27 hamlets as controls): Supply of stoves during sales visits, basic demand promotion (information and demonstrations), and financing option for purchase of stoves.
Household-level randomization of rebates delivered to households conditional on observed use of stoves.

Hamlet-level randomization done in an office on a computer; household level randomization achieved in the field by draw from a bag.

Sales intervention: Hamlet level
Rebates: Household level

Yes

97 hamlets.

1061 households

71 clusters assigned to treatment, 27 to control
Among treatment households (n=770), one third expected in each rebate group.