IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v75y2012i4p634-642.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding why women adopt and sustain home water treatment: Insights from the Malawi antenatal care program

Author

Listed:
  • Wood, Siri
  • Foster, Jennifer
  • Kols, Adrienne

Abstract

In many settings in Africa, social marketing has proven more successful in generating brand recognition for chlorine water treatment products than in promoting their use. To promote household use of one such product in Malawi, WaterGuard, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Population Services International (PSI) distributed free hygiene kits that included WaterGuard to pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in 2007. Follow-up surveys documented a sustained increase in WaterGuard use three years after the initial intervention. In 2010, PATH (www.path.org) conducted qualitative research on the factors motivating women to adopt, sustain, or discontinue use. To provide context, interviews were also conducted with their friends, relatives, and husbands. Interviews revealed that sustained use of WaterGuard does not necessarily imply consistent use. Most respondents reported switching back and forth between WaterGuard and stock chlorine distributed for free by the government, and many treated water seasonally rather than year-round. Qualitative findings suggest that two program strategies strongly influenced women’s decisions to adopt, purchase, and continue using WaterGuard. First, positive, ongoing contacts with health care workers, especially during home visits, raised awareness of the need to treat water, encouraged trial use, and supported continuing use. Second, an extended free trial of the product overcame initial cost barriers and allowed women and their families to experience the health benefits of WaterGuard, appreciate its value and relevance to their lives, and get used to its taste. Social support—from like-minded relatives, friends, neighbors, health care workers, husbands, and children—was also a critical factor that promoted consistent, ongoing use of WaterGuard. The findings confirm the importance of interpersonal communication in prompting adoption of household water treatment and suggest that consumers assess the perceived value of a product, not simply its cost. Further research is planned to investigate questions raised about patterns of ongoing use.

Suggested Citation

  • Wood, Siri & Foster, Jennifer & Kols, Adrienne, 2012. "Understanding why women adopt and sustain home water treatment: Insights from the Malawi antenatal care program," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(4), pages 634-642.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:4:p:634-642
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.09.018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953611005880
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.09.018?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ram, P.K. & Kelsey, E. & Rasoatiana & Miarintsoa, R.R. & Rakotomalala, O. & Dunston, C. & Quick, R.E., 2007. "Bringing safe water to remote populations: An evaluation of a portable point-of-use intervention in rural Madagascar," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 97(3), pages 398-400.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Holly Ann Williams & Joanna Gaines & Molly Patrick & David Berendes & David Fitter & Thomas Handzel, 2015. "Perceptions of Health Communication, Water Treatment and Sanitation in Artibonite Department, Haiti, March-April 2012," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(11), pages 1-17, November.
    2. Aboud, Frances E. & Singla, Daisy R., 2012. "Challenges to changing health behaviours in developing countries: A critical overview," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(4), pages 589-594.
    3. Schäfer, Andrea I. & Hughes, Gordon & Richards, Bryce S., 2014. "Renewable energy powered membrane technology: A leapfrog approach to rural water treatment in developing countries?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 542-556.
    4. Bisung, Elijah & Elliott, Susan J. & Schuster-Wallace, Corinne J. & Karanja, Diana M. & Bernard, Abudho, 2014. "Social capital, collective action and access to water in rural Kenya," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 147-154.
    5. Bisung, Elijah & Elliott, Susan J., 2014. "Toward a social capital based framework for understanding the water-health nexus," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 194-200.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Parker Fiebelkorn, Amy & Person, Bobbie & Quick, Robert E. & Vindigni, Stephen M. & Jhung, Michael & Bowen, Anna & Riley, Patricia L., 2012. "Systematic review of behavior change research on point-of-use water treatment interventions in countries categorized as low- to medium-development on the human development index," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(4), pages 622-633.
    2. May Sudhinaraset & Matthew Ingram & Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse & Dominic Montagu, 2013. "What Is the Role of Informal Healthcare Providers in Developing Countries? A Systematic Review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(2), pages 1-12, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:4:p:634-642. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.