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Consumer behaviour and climate action: insights from a Randomised Control Trial experiment in India's residential cooling sector.

ABSTRACT: Air-conditioning is expected to be the largest consumer of residential energy in India in the future. Good consumer practices related to servicing air-conditioners (ACs) are critical for maintaining high operational efficiency of ACs and reducing leakages of high global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant gases. Little information, however, is available about the knowledge and practices of Indian AC consumers in terms of their operational practices. The Government of India's 'India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP)' recommends a massive consumer awareness program to inform and change AC user behaviour. Within this context of the ICAP that aims to provide access to sustainable cooling to its masses while minimising its environmental impacts, we undertake a survey and a Randomised Control Trial (RCT) experiment including Indian consumers. The survey and experiment together aim to understand the AC servicing behaviour of Indian consumers and experiment with alternative interventions to influence their behaviour and glean insights for India's energy and climate policies. The behavioural experiment is a unique and novel methodological contribution to India's cooling and climate debate. This research is a first-of-its-kind RCT study of Indian consumers' AC servicing practices. We find that the AC users' knowledge of the importance of preventive servicing is much lower than required. The interventions were successful in enhancing general awareness related to the importance of servicing practices, but not in enhancing technical knowledge related to specific good servicing practices. Our analysis shows that consumers who know about the economic benefit of servicing are more likely to undertake preventive servicing. Our findings highlight the presence of information asymmetry in the Indian residential cooling market and argue that this needs to be addressed for achieving the desired behavioural change and actions to mitigate climate change.

SUBMITTER: Chaturvedi V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7797516 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Consumer behaviour and climate action: insights from a Randomised Control Trial experiment in India's residential cooling sector.

Chaturvedi Vaibhav V Gorthi Apurupa A Bhasin Shikha S Laha Arnab A

Heliyon 20201230 1

Air-conditioning is expected to be the largest consumer of residential energy in India in the future. Good consumer practices related to servicing air-conditioners (ACs) are critical for maintaining high operational efficiency of ACs and reducing leakages of high global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant gases. Little information, however, is available about the knowledge and practices of Indian AC consumers in terms of their operational practices. The Government of India's 'India Cooling Actio ...[more]

PMID: 33458437

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Project description:BackgroundIndia has 23% of the global burden of active tuberculosis (TB) patients and 27% of the world's "missing" patients, which includes those who may not have received effective TB care and could potentially spread TB to others. The "cascade of care" is a useful model for visualizing deficiencies in case detection and retention in care, in order to prioritize interventions.Methods and findingsThe care cascade constructed in this paper focuses on the Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP), which treats about half of India's TB patients. We define the TB cascade as including the following patient populations: total prevalent active TB patients in India, TB patients who reach and undergo evaluation at RNTCP diagnostic facilities, patients successfully diagnosed with TB, patients who start treatment, patients retained to treatment completion, and patients who achieve 1-y recurrence-free survival. We estimate each step of the cascade for 2013 using data from two World Health Organization (WHO) reports (2014-2015), one WHO dataset (2015), and three RNTCP reports (2014-2016). In addition, we conduct three targeted systematic reviews of the scientific literature to identify 39 unique articles published from 2000-2015 that provide additional data on five indicators that help estimate different steps of the TB cascade. We construct separate care cascades for the overall population of patients with active TB and for patients with specific forms of TB-including new smear-positive, new smear-negative, retreatment smear-positive, and multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB. The WHO estimated that there were 2,700,000 (95%CI: 1,800,000-3,800,000) prevalent TB patients in India in 2013. Of these patients, we estimate that 1,938,027 (72%) TB patients were evaluated at RNTCP facilities; 1,629,906 (60%) were successfully diagnosed; 1,417,838 (53%) got registered for treatment; 1,221,764 (45%) completed treatment; and 1,049,237 (95%CI: 1,008,775-1,083,243), or 39%, of 2,700,000 TB patients achieved the optimal outcome of 1-y recurrence-free survival. The separate cascades for different forms of TB highlight different patterns of patient attrition. Pretreatment loss to follow-up of diagnosed patients and post-treatment TB recurrence were major points of attrition in the new smear-positive TB cascade. In the new smear-negative and MDR TB cascades, a substantial proportion of patients who were evaluated at RNTCP diagnostic facilities were not successfully diagnosed. Retreatment smear-positive and MDR TB patients had poorer treatment outcomes than the general TB population. Limitations of our analysis include the lack of available data on the cascade of care in the private sector and substantial uncertainty regarding the 1-y period prevalence of TB in India.ConclusionsIncreasing case detection is critical to improving outcomes in India's TB cascade of care, especially for smear-negative and MDR TB patients. For new smear-positive patients, pretreatment loss to follow-up and post-treatment TB recurrence are considerable points of attrition that may contribute to ongoing TB transmission. Future multisite studies providing more accurate information on key steps in the public sector TB cascade and extension of this analysis to private sector patients may help to better target interventions and resources for TB control in India.

Project description:IntroductionSchool canteens represent an opportune setting in which to deliver public health nutrition strategies given their wide reach, and frequent use by children. Online school canteen ordering systems, where students order and pay for their lunch online, provide an avenue to improve healthy canteen purchases through the application of consumer behaviour strategies that impact on purchasing decisions. The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy of a consumer behaviour intervention implemented in an online school canteen ordering system in reducing the kilojoule, saturated fat, sugar and sodium content of primary student lunch orders.Methods and analysisThe study will employ a cluster randomised controlled trial design. Approximately 1040 students (aged 5-12 years) from 10 primary schools in New South Wales, Australia, currently using an online canteen ordering system will be invited to participate. Schools will be randomised in a 1:1 ratio to receive either the intervention (enhanced system) or control (standard online ordering only). The intervention will include evidence-based strategies shown to influence healthy food purchasing (strategies targeting availability, menu labelling, placement and prompting). The primary outcomes of the trial will be the mean content per student online lunch order of (1) energy (kJ), (2) saturated fat (g), (3) sugar (g) and (4) sodium (mg). The impact of the intervention will be determined by between-group assessment of the nutritional content of lunch purchases over a 2-month period postintervention initiation.Ethics and disseminationThe study was approved by the Hunter New England Human Research Ethics Committee, University of Newcastle Human Research Ethics Committee and New South Wales Department of Education and School Communities. Study findings will be disseminated widely through peer-reviewed publications and relevant presentations in international conferences and to stakeholders.Trial registration numberACTRN12616000499482.

Project description:BackgroundIndustrialization and urbanization, while associated with increased productivity, are also potential causes of increased air pollution. Urban air quality has the potential to affect the health and wellbeing of residents of urban areas.ObjectivesThe present study investigated the levels of air pollutants around residential areas and transport sector locations (TSLs) in Lagos, Nigeria. Residential areas were defined as areas around inner streets and living quarters, while TSLs included busy roads, dual carriage roads, bus stops and major car parks in the Yaba Local Council Development Area of Lagos Mainland, Lagos, Nigeria.MethodsAir quality parameters were assessed in situ using calibrated hand-held devices at selected residential and TSLs. Each sampling location was geo-referenced and concentrations of the various parameters were used to plot distribution maps.ResultsThe findings from the monitoring exercise showed that levels of the measured air pollutants: carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), sulphur dioxide (SO2), noise, temperature and humidity were within the ranges of 1.00 - 6.0 5.97 ppm, 43.345.2 - 127.2159.7 μg/m3, 20.3 23.25 - 69.058.16 μg/m3, 0.0 0 - 0.20.17 ppm, 47.7 50 - 65 70.1 dB, 26.2227.2 - 35.536.7°C and 57.0157.6 - 91.8492.3%, respectively, around residential areas. Values of the measured air pollutants at the TSLs ranged as follows: 2.011.0 - 5.397.7 ppm, 103.3360.7 - 179.77404.0 μg/m3, 50.2832.3 - 91.01184.0 μg/m3, 0.00 - 0.40 ppm, 64.2153.1 - 71.1376.3 dB, 27.1826.2 -27.9332.6°C and 60.3660.0 - 75.0178.0%, respectively. Hydrogen sulphide (H2S), ammonia (NH3), nitrogen oxide (NO2) were below detection limits in both sampling locations while volatile organic carbons (VOCs) ranged from 0.00 - 0.10 ppm in the TSLs.DiscussionMost assessed air quality parameters were significantly higher around bus stops (P < 0.05), except for CO and humidity. In addition, PM10 and PM2.5 were much higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. The results indicated that the quality of air (particulate matter) in the study area was poor, especially in the TSLs.ConclusionsThe Federal Ministry of Environment, through its relevant agencies, must create policies to address urban air pollution, taking into consideration long term exposures and people that are most vulnerable within the population.Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing financial interests.

Dataset Information

Consumer behaviour and climate action: insights from a Randomised Control Trial experiment in India's residential cooling sector.

Publications

Consumer behaviour and climate action: insights from a Randomised Control Trial experiment in India's residential cooling sector.

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