The Effect of Behaviour Change Interventions on Use of Public Handwashing Stations in Bangladesh

As part of the COVID-19 response, BRAC, an international development organisation based in Bangladesh, has built 1000 public handwashing stations in several hundred villages in Dhaka, Khulna and Mymensingh divisions. The investigators investigate the effects of two sets of behavioural interventions on use of the handwashing stations, compared to no additional interventions.

The first set of interventions, which do not require ongoing labour (hence termed 'low intensity'), involve the installation of various 'nudges' (e.g. mirrors and signposts) on the station and in the surrounding area; these interventions are designed to attract attention and guide people to the stations. The second set of interventions, which do require ongoing labour ('high intensity'), involve 'promoters' visiting the stations a few times a week for three weeks to hand out free bars of soap to station users, update a community board next to the station with cumulative usage numbers, and to encourage users to place comments or marks on the board as a form of social proof. Stations will be assigned to receive either the low intensity nudges, the high intensity intervention, or no additional intervention beyond BRAC's standard programming using a covariate adaptive randomisation process (with randomisation occurring at the village level to reduce spillover risk).

The Investigators will measure use of the stations for one week prior to the implementation of the behavioural interventions, and then for a further six weeks. Station usage will be measured by a combination of structured observations and tally counters attached to the foot pedals that operate the station.

Note: the sample consists of villages that have received at least one public handwashing station from BRAC, rather than human participants, though the investigators are measuring the use of the stations by human participants.

The initial sample of villages has been chosen from a set of 1,899 villages identified by BRAC as being eligible for this project based on criteria related to COVID-19 cases, existing BRAC programs and village characteristics. The villages are spread across 3 of Bangladesh's 8 divisions, 8 of its 64 districts, and 20 of its 492 subdistricts ('upazilas'). While most of the 'villages' are located in rural parts of Bangladesh, roughly 15 percent are better characterised as wards or towns within urban and peri-urban municipalities.

Inclusion criteria

Villages identified by BRAC as being eligible for this based on:

• COVID-19 cases
• Existing BRAC programs
• village characteristics
• viable location for a handwashing station (space/water source)
• local community members willing to 'sponsor' and maintain handwashing station

Exclusion criteria

• Lack of viable location for a handwashing station.
• Villages that received handwashing stations as part of the pilot phase
• Villages randomly selected in a related impact evaluation measuring the impact of the stations themselves