School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK.
Institute of Anthropology, Gender and African Studies, University of Nairobi, IAS Museum Hill, Parklands Highridge, Nairobi 00100, Kenya.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jan 5;19(1):597. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19010597.
Reducing disease from unsafe drinking-water is a key environmental health objective in rural Sub-Saharan Africa, where water management is largely community-based. The effectiveness of environmental health risk reporting to motivate sustained behaviour change is contested but as efforts to increase rural drinking-water monitoring proceed, it is timely to ask how water quality information feedback can improve water safety management. Using cross-sectional (1457 households) and longitudinal (167 participants) surveys, semi-structured interviews (73 participants), and water quality monitoring (79 sites), we assess water safety perceptions and evaluate an information intervention through which monitoring results were shared with water managers over a 1.5-year period in rural Kitui County, Kenya. We integrate the extended parallel process model and the precaution adoption process model to frame risk information processing and stages of behaviour change. We highlight that responses to risk communications are determined by the specificity, framing, and repetition of messaging and the self-efficacy of information recipients. Poverty threatscapes and gender norms hinder behaviour change, particularly at the household-level; however, test results can motivate supply-level managers to implement hazard control measures-with effectiveness and sustainability dependent on infrastructure, training, and ongoing resourcing. Our results have implications for rural development efforts and environmental risk reporting in low-income settings.
减少因不安全饮用水导致的疾病是撒哈拉以南非洲农村地区的一个主要环境健康目标，而该地区的水资源管理主要以社区为基础。向公众报告环境健康风险以激励持续行为改变的有效性存在争议，但随着增加农村饮用水监测工作的推进，及时询问水质信息反馈如何能改善水安全管理是很有必要的。我们使用横断面（1457 户家庭）和纵向（167 名参与者）调查、半结构化访谈（73 名参与者）和水质监测（79 个地点），评估水安全认知，并评估了一项信息干预措施，该措施在肯尼亚基图伊县农村地区持续了 1.5 年，将监测结果与水管理人员分享。我们将扩展的并行处理模型和预防采用过程模型相结合，构建风险信息处理和行为改变阶段。我们强调，对风险沟通的反应取决于信息的特异性、框架和重复，以及信息接收者的自我效能。贫困威胁景观和性别规范阻碍了行为改变，尤其是在家庭层面；然而，测试结果可以激励供应层面的管理者采取危害控制措施，其有效性和可持续性取决于基础设施、培训和持续资源投入。我们的研究结果对农村发展工作和低收入环境风险报告具有重要意义。
