Economic valuation of avoiding exposure to arsenic in drinking water

Project Summary

The proposed research will provide original value estimates for protection against illness from drinking water supplies contaminated with arsenic. The objectives are investigating private values for protection from exposure to arsenic in drinking water supplies that are revealed by the behaviours households undertake to avoid elevated levels of arsenic in drinking water and conduct a stated-preference study to estimate households willingness to pay for government programmes aimed at reducing health risks by limiting exposure to arsenic in drinking water. Averting behaviours are protective expenditures and actions that households undertake to avoid illness or death. A stated-preferences study estimates the value that people place on public goods and services. The main hypotheses investigated in applying both valuation methods are that households willingness to pay (money or time) for protection from exposure to arsenic increases with elevated levels of arsenic in drinking water and that willingness to pay for protection also varies with household demographic characteristics. A survey will be administered to collect averting expenditures and stated-preference data from households in communities with elevated arsenic levels. These data will be used to estimate individual household willingness to pay to avoid exposure to arsenic in drinking water. The data will also be used for development of estimates of the value of a statistical life and a statistical cancer from reducing the exposure to arsenic in drinking water. That is, the data will provide economic benefit estimates of reducing the probability of one death or one cancer from exposure to arsenic in drinking water.