Religious proximity and misinformation: Experimental evidence from a mobile phone-based campaign in India

Alex Armand; Britta Augsburg; Antonella Bancalari; Kalyan Kumar Kameshwara

doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2024.102883

Religious proximity and misinformation: Experimental evidence from a mobile phone-based campaign in India

Alex Armand, Britta Augsburg, Antonella Bancalari, Kalyan Kumar Kameshwara

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Abstract

We investigate how religion concordance influences the effectiveness of preventive health campaigns. Conducted during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in two major Indian cities marked by Hindu–Muslim tensions, we randomly assigned a representative sample of slum residents to receive either a physician-delivered information campaign promoting health-related preventive practices, or uninformative control messages on their mobile phones. Messages, introduced by a local citizen (the sender), were cross-randomized to start with a greeting signaling either a Hindu or a Muslim identity, manipulating religion concordance between sender and receiver. We found that doctor messages increased compliance with recommended practices and beliefs in their efficacy. Our findings suggest that the campaign's impact is primarily driven by shared religion between sender and receiver, leading to increased message engagement and compliance with recommended practices. Additionally, we observe that religion concordance helps protect against misinformation.

Original language	English
Article number	102883
Journal	Journal of Health Economics
Volume	96
Early online date	9 May 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2024.102883 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2024.102883
Publication status	Published - 30 Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors

Data Availability Statement

The link to the replication package is https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/201306/version/V1/view;jsessionid=26E4BA4F6A8A389BC57165003A1EB299.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Oriana Bandiera, Michael Callen and Maithreesh Ghatak, as well as seminar participants at the LSE-STICERD Development Economics seminar series and at IFS for helpful comments. This project would not have been possible without the insightful support of our partners in the field, Tatheer Fatima, Yashashvi Singh, Bhartendu Trivedi, and the field team of Morsel Research and Development. We are grateful to Julia Loh for outstanding research assistance. We are also indebted to study participants for their willingness to contribute to the study. This work was supported by the International Growth Centre [grant number IND-20077]; and the LSE Special Grant for Coronavirus Research [grant number 106404]. Kameshwara acknowledges support from the ESRC’s SWDTP Placement Scheme. Armand acknowledges funding from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [grant numbers UIDB/00124/2020, UIDP/00124/2020 and Social Sciences DataLab – PINFRA/22209/2016], POR Lisboa and POR Norte [grant numbers Social Sciences DataLab – PINFRA/22209/2016]. Augsburg and Bancalari acknowledge support from the ESRC’s Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at IFS [grant number ES/T014334/1]. Ethics approval was secured from the London School of Economics and Political Science [REC reference number 1132]. The pre-analysis plan was registered on the AEA RCT registry (Armand et al. 2020)

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

Keywords

Information
Field experiment
India
Health campaign
Religion
COVID-19
Communication
Policy

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Health Policy
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Access to Document

JHE_paper+appendixFinal published version, 3.46 MBLicence: CC BY

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629624000286Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "We investigate how religion concordance influences the effectiveness of preventive health campaigns. Conducted during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in two major Indian cities marked by Hindu–Muslim tensions, we randomly assigned a representative sample of slum residents to receive either a physician-delivered information campaign promoting health-related preventive practices, or uninformative control messages on their mobile phones. Messages, introduced by a local citizen (the sender), were cross-randomized to start with a greeting signaling either a Hindu or a Muslim identity, manipulating religion concordance between sender and receiver. We found that doctor messages increased compliance with recommended practices and beliefs in their efficacy. Our findings suggest that the campaign's impact is primarily driven by shared religion between sender and receiver, leading to increased message engagement and compliance with recommended practices. Additionally, we observe that religion concordance helps protect against misinformation.",

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Religious proximity and misinformation: Experimental evidence from a mobile phone-based campaign in India

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Acknowledgements

UN SDGs

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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Cite this