Personalized lead exposure information and preventive behaviors in Ivory Coast: Insights from a pilot study

Véronique Gille, Flore Gubert, Camille Saint-Macary, Stéphanie Dos Santos, Franck Houffoué, Hugues Kouadio, Epiphane Marahoua, Petanki Soro and Alexander van Geen

PLOS ONE, 2025, vol. 20, issue 11, 1-12

Abstract: Lead (Pb) exposure is a major global health concern, particularly for young children, yet awareness of the risks is low. Pb-based paint remains a significant source of exposure in many low- and middle-income countries, despite existing regulations. We investigate whether personalized information on lead in paint can increase awareness and encourage preventive behaviors. As part of a pilot study in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, painted surfaces in pregnant women’s homes were tested using a low-cost Pb detection kit, followed by confirmatory testing with an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) device. Among the final sample of 153 women, those living in homes that tested positive for Pb were 33-35 percentage points more likely to acknowledge their exposure risk. This increased awareness led to self-reported behavioral changes among mothers of young children, including a higher likelihood of preventing children from ingesting paint chips and washing their hands more frequently. We find no impact on self-reported home-cleaning or renovation behaviors. Our findings highlight the potential of personalized information to drive behavioral change in environmental health.

Date: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0336949 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 36949&type=printable (application/pdf)

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:plo:pone00:0336949

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0336949

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().