About This Project
Handwashing with soap is the most effective technique against bacterial and viral contamination, which ends the lives of nearly three million kids in poverty stricken communities every year. Yet campaigns to promote handwashing fail time and again: it seems impossible to effectively create the habit. Based on new insights from cutting edge psychological and economics research paired with sharp engineering, we propose a revolutionary solution.Ask the Scientists
Join The DiscussionWhat is the context of this research?
The health benefits of handwashing in controlled
environments are clear, but campaigns in the developing world have repeatedly failed to create behavioral change. The reason is two-fold: (1) we lack the ability to measure handwashing; and therefore (2) we lack the ability to assess what works. Physically monitoring handwashing is intrusive and costly in rural areas and observation itself can change behavior artificially. Poor measurement in turn dramatically reduces both the tools that can be employed to build a handwashing habit, such as incentives or community monitoring, as well as the precision with which we can identify what mechanisms affect behavior. Is it high costs? Low social motivation? Forgetfulness? For the first time in hygiene research, our study will tell us the answer.
What is the significance of this project?
It is no exaggeration: nearly three million children indeed die every year from illnesses that are entirely preventable through handwashing. Existing campaigns have taught us that information provision is NOT the solution; neither is providing soap or water for free. Even with all of these things, people simply don't wash their hands.
But from recent economics research, we know that economic incentives structured the right way can change behavior. From psychological research, we know that the habit loop (trigger, action, reward) can create behavioral change that will last even after the incentive is eliminated. And with our noninvasive measurement device built by some of the world's top engineers at the MIT Media Lab, we finally have a way to track exactly what works and what doesn't.
What are the goals of the project?
Our measurement device is a beautifully crafted liquid handsoap bottle which records the frequency, time, and pressure with which soap is dispensed. All electronics are noninvasively embedded in the bottle: users need not know of its tracking capability.
We are currently working on the final design of our measurement device, and ask your help for the last push. With $3300, we can complete a GSM module: every time the dispenser is pushed, the GSM will send data wirelessly to a central server. If used before mealtime as our households are instructed to, they will be rewarded immediately in funds via their cellphone. The loop is thereby completed seamlessly: mealtime is the trigger, handwashing the action, and funds their reward. We eventually phase out the incentives and track the habit.
Budget
We are raising funds to complete the design of an innovative, noninvasive measurement tool and liquid handsoap bottle that allows us to monitor, track, and thereby incentivize handwashing with soap.
The purchase of the electronics behind the device are very cheap. The electronic design and programming of the device has been completed by engineers at the MIT Media Lab, as has several 3-D prints. However, to adapt the design for production (as we intend to produce 2000 devices to distribute across our sample study population in rural West Bengal), we require an industrial designer to make sure that the device is fully waterproof and suitable for mass production. The budget will work towards ensuring this goal.
If we reach the $15,000 cutoff instead of our current $3,300 goal, $3,300 dollars will be allocated to the final industrial design while $11,700 will go towards mass producing the device for distribution in West Bengal. We have built a strong partnership with a prestigious public health organization in the area (SHDS), and with their help and yours, the $15,000 would allow us to launch this device on a scale large enough to collect meaningful, policy-relevant data: all 2000 households in our study sample (all of which are living on less than $2 per day, have a child less than five years old who is frequently sick from viral or bacterial contamination, and who do not wash their hands with soap) will be equipped with a device that will allow us to incentivize handwashing and built this essential habit into their lives.
Meet the Team
Team Bio
Reshmaan Hussam and Natalia Rigol, PhD Candidates in Economics and researchers at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL), have a combined 14 years of experience in South Asia implementing field projects, several in the public health realm. Their training at MIT and research experience have equipped them with the statistical and data analysis skills necessary to translate the collected data into instructive policy. They are accompanied by Giovanni Reggiani, a PhD Candidate in Economics at MIT with extensive experience in theoretical modeling with field application, which has allowed the team to methodically address each component of the handwashing and habit formation behavior.Drs. Nan-Wei Gong and Amit Zoran, Research Affiliates at the MIT Media Lab, and George Chang, research associate, are the electrical and industrial engineers behind the device. Accomplished in their own right, they also have access to the world renown design and fabrication facilities of the MIT labs.
Lab Notes
Nothing posted yet.
Additional Information
Our first barebones prototype: electronics at the bottom, cap with a pressure sensor, and eventually covered with cloth before we piloted in the field. You can see how much progress we've made since then!
The design of our current bottle. There's a submarine in which to hide the electronic components, and a wire feeds up through the right side where a pressure sensor is placed just below the cap. A USB opening allows surveyors to recharge the bottle and extract data. Everything is screwed in with special screws which are impossible to remove without a unique screwdriver.
Our most recent prototype in live form; we'll be piloting this in the field in September, but also need to redesign it in order to make it feasible for mass production. That's where we need your help!
A child learning to wash her hands with our first piloted prototype and a make-shift water spout. These houses do not have running water, but have ample access to shallow tubewells from which they can obtain water. With a water spout made from local materials, they have all the tools needed to make it easy to wash their hands with soap. And yet they still don't - it is our task to figure out why not and how we can change that behavior.
Children at the local nursery school, where they get fed one meal in the morning. Note that all children eat with their hands.
A mother showing off the piloted first prototype, which she utilized daily with her two young children for a week. The data we collected was fascinating: you could see exactly when and how often the family used the soap, and it was most frequent around their evening mealtime. Of course, this pilot was just for a week per household to examine receptivity: our ultimate goal is to make handwashing a habit that lasts through generations.
Children hanging around while we pilot the device. Nearly all the children we visited suffered from a cold or respiratory infection; this is extremely common in the developing world and can be largely prevented by improved hand hygiene habits.
Cow manure near a typical household. This manure is played with by children and turned into fuel cakes by the women; laden with bacteria, the hands that touch this are only washed with water - and rarely cleaned with soap - before eating.
West Bengal, our region of interest, has beautiful rice paddies stretching to the horizon.
Women fashioning mud and manure cakes to use for fertilizer in their farms.
Children playing in a construction site.
A mother feeding her children.
Project Backers
- 3Backers
- 4%Funded
- $100Total Donations
- $33.33Average Donation