Continuation of Health Behaviors: Psychosocial Factors Sustaining Drinking Water Chlorination in a Longitudinal Study from Chad

Jonathan Lilje and Hans-Joachim Mosler
Additional contact information
Jonathan Lilje: Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland
Hans-Joachim Mosler: Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 11, 1-20

Abstract: Behavior that has changed following promotion campaigns is usually not maintained at its initial level. Psychosocial factors for initiating behavior are often not the same as for the continuation of health behaviors such as water treatment and are much less understood. Better knowledge of factors for behavioral continuation would help to improve programs, both in the design of strategies for sustainable behavior change and by defining stronger criteria for the evaluation of sustainability. This study compared the mindsets of caregivers who continuously performed household drinking water treatment over time with individuals that stopped doing so in a population sample from Chad. Several factors from health psychology based on the Risks, Attitudes, Norms, Abilities, and Self-Regulation (RANAS) model were used to compare the two groups and examine their differing development. Normative factors such as others’ behavior, personal obligation, social support and discourse, perceived self-efficacy convictions, action control, and intention best discriminated between the two groups and developed significantly more positively over time for continuers of water treatment. These factors should be considered when designing future interventions intended to lead to sustainable behavior change.

Keywords: behavior change; health psychology; behavioral continuation; drinking water; WASH (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/11/1149/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/11/1149/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:11:p:1149-:d:82534

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().