A behavioral design approach to improving a Chagas disease vector control campaign in Peru.

Background: Individual behavior change is a critical ingredient in efforts to improve global health. Central to the focus on behavior has been a growing understanding of how the human brain makes decisions, from motivations and mindsets to unconscious biases and cognitive shortcuts. Recent work in the field of behavioral economics and related fields has contributed to a rich menu of insights and principles that can be engineered into global health programs to increase impact and reach.

To spray or not to spray? Understanding participation in an indoor residual spray campaign in Arequipa, Peru.

Current low participation rates in vector control programmes in Arequipa, Peru complicate the control of Chagas disease. Using focus groups (n = 17 participants) and semi-structured interviews (n = 71) conducted in March and May 2013, respectively, we examined barriers to and motivators of household participation in an indoor residual spray (IRS) campaign that had taken place one year prior in Arequipa. The most common reported barriers to participation were inconvenient spray times due to work obligations, not considering the campaign to be necessary, concerns about secondary health impacts (e.

Is participation contagious? Evidence from a household vector control campaign in urban Peru.

Objectives: High rates of household participation are critical to the success of door-to-door vector control campaigns. We used the Health Belief Model to assess determinants of participation, including neighbour participation as a cue to action, in a Chagas disease vector control campaign in Peru.

Methods: We evaluated clustering of participation among neighbours; estimated participation as a function of household infestation status, neighbourhood type and number of participating neighbours; and described the reported reasons for refusal to participate in a district of 2911 households.