Experimental Design
We use a randomized control trial (RCT) design to determine changes in environmental attitudes and preferences, changes in mobility behaviour, and parental willingness to pay to avoid illnesses based on individual awareness of their children's exposure to air pollution.
Our treatment sample contains approximately 150 parents of school-aged children aged 6-15 from primary schools in the city of Brno, Czech Republic. All children carry a personal sampler measuring air pollution exposure continuously for seven days (including weekends), one week in winter and one week in summer, to capture seasonal variation in different air pollution sources.
Another 150 parents of school-age children 6-15 in Brno city form a control group for whom this air measurement is not performed.
The intervention consists of detailed information about air pollution and its risks. At the end of the study, parents of the treatment group will receive a detailed graphical report explaining the values and health risks for each of their children.
The experimental part consists mainly of completing questionnaires before and after the intervention. Both treatment and control groups complete the first questionnaire before data collection begins. The questionnaire mainly contains the following questions:
• Basic socioeconomic and demographic data on household members (e.g., gender, age, place of birth, highest completed education, marital status, number of children, occupation, and annual income category),
• household data (type, floor area, air conditioning, heating, ventilation),
• time-location/spatiotemporal characteristics/data of the child (e.g. time spent in school, leisure time, time spent in transport),
• mobility data (mode of travel to school, leisure mobility, etc.),
• data on health and associated financial expenditure (e.g. child's health status, direct and indirect costs related to health care among household members, child's leisure activities, smoking in the household),
• non-market valuation of the disease, i.e. willingness to pay to avoid the disease
• attitudinal issues (perceptions of air pollution, attitudes towards environmentally friendly behaviour, etc.).
A second almost identical questionnaire is completed by the treatment and control group after the intervention, i.e., receiving a detailed report of the child's air pollution exposure.