Experimental Design
We implement a controlled field experiment with a quasi-experimental pre-post design to examine changes in environmental attitudes and preferences, mobility behaviour, and parental willingness to pay to avoid illnesses following individualised information about their children's exposure to air pollution.
Our treatment sample consists of approximately 150 parents of school-aged children aged 6–15 from primary schools in the city of Brno, Czech Republic. Children in the treatment group carry a personal sampler measuring air pollution exposure continuously for seven days (including weekends), once in winter and once in summer, in order to capture seasonal variation in pollution sources.
The control group consists of approximately 150 parents of school-aged children aged 6–15 in Brno in each survey wave, for whom no individual air pollution monitoring is conducted.
The intervention consists of providing detailed information about air pollution exposure and its associated health risks. At the end of the study, parents in the treatment group receive a personalised graphical report explaining the measured exposure levels and potential health implications for each of their children.
The experimental component consists primarily of survey data collection before and after the intervention. Both treatment and control groups complete a baseline questionnaire prior to data collection. The questionnaire includes:
• Basic socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of household members (e.g. gender, age, place of birth, highest completed education, marital status, number of children, occupation, and income category),
• Household characteristics (type of housing, heating, ventilation),
• Time-location and spatiotemporal characteristics of the child (e.g. time spent in school, leisure activities, time spent in transport),
• Mobility behaviour (mode of travel to school and other mobility patterns),
• Health status and related financial expenditures (e.g. child’s health, direct and indirect healthcare costs, leisure activities, smoking in the household),
• Stated preferences, including willingness to pay to avoid illness (based on a hypothetical scenario),
• Attitudinal measures (perceptions of air pollution and attitudes towards environmentally friendly behaviour).
A second, nearly identical questionnaire is administered to both treatment and control groups after the intervention, following the provision of the individualised exposure report.
The treatment group follows the same individuals over time, while the control group is based on repeated cross-sectional samples, with different respondents surveyed before and after the intervention. The empirical analysis will rely on a difference-in-differences framework, controlling for observable characteristics to account for potential compositional differences between samples.