Psychological determinants of the adoption of a community-based drinking water purification technology in rural India
Mithun Raj (Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham)
Josianne Kollmann (Eawag - Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology)
Saket Pande (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
Maneesha Vinodini Ramesh (Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham)
Nadja Contzen (Eawag - Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
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Abstract
Community-based water purification technologies provide a pathway to safe drinking water in rural India, where infrastructure and service reliability are often limited. This study investigates direct and indirect psychological determinants as well as contextual factors of adoption of Jivamritam, a community-based water purification technology, as a regular source of drinking water. Guided by a user-focused theory of change framework, cross-sectional survey data from 671 households across 40 communities in six Indian states were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models. Results revealed that five psychological determinants were significantly associated with adoption: perceived severity of waterborne disease (odds ratio [OR] = 1.74), perceived ease of access (OR = 2.22), perceived cost-effectiveness (OR = 2.17), perceived descriptive norms (OR = 2.80) and trust in the implementing agency (OR = 2.14). Among the contextual factors, assistance from family members was directly associated with adoption (OR = 24.96) as well as indirectly via perceived ease of access (OR = 4.77). Trust in the water committee was associated with adoption via perceived ease of access and perceived cost-effectiveness (OR = 2.08). Our findings emphasize the need to account for both direct and indirect behavioral pathways when seeking to understand water purification technology’s adoption. Moreover, by quantifying these behavioral pathways, this study provides actionable, empirically grounded targets for interventions aimed at promoting the adoption of such technologies.
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