Grantee Research Project Results
2007 Progress Report: Family Decision Making and the Value of Preventing Childhood Developmental Impairment
EPA Grant Number: R830822Title: Family Decision Making and the Value of Preventing Childhood Developmental Impairment
Investigators: Krupnick, Alan J. , Bostrom, Ann , Hoffmann, Sandra , Adamowicz, Wiktor
Institution: Resources for the Future , University of Alberta , Georgia Institute of Technology
Current Institution: Resources for the Future , Georgia Institute of Technology , University of Alberta
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: September 1, 2003 through August 31, 2007 (Extended to August 31, 2008)
Project Period Covered by this Report: September 1, 2006 through August 31, 2007
Project Amount: $344,698
RFA: Valuation of Environmental Impacts on Children's Health (2002) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Human Health , Children's Health , Environmental Justice
Objective:
Environmental neurotoxins are believed to be a significant contributor to the developmental disabilities suffered by nearly 12 million U.S. children (Weiss and Landrigan 2000). Over 60,000 U.S. children are born each year at risk for neuro-developmental impairment due to in utero exposure to methyl mercury from their mother’s fish consumption. Nearly 1 million American children have blood lead levels defined as lead poisoning (CDC 1997). There is also growing scientific concern that PCBs, other heavy metals, pesticides, and solvents may also be impairing children’s neuro-behavioral development (Goldman and Koduru 2000).
Since children, especially young children, do not participate fully in the market place and do not have a mature capacity for judgment, most researchers believe that parents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for reduction in risks to their own children’s health should be part of benefits assessment for programs protecting children’s health. The few studies that value parental WTP to reduce environmental risks to children’s health assume that household choice can be represented as an action by a single decision-maker with a unitary utility function and a pooled budget ((Shultze, et al. 1999, Dickie 1999, Agee and Crocker 1994). A large body of literature in household economics, cognitive psychology, and the sociology of the family all indicate that these assumptions are seriously flawed (e.g., Becker 1991, Doss 1996, Browning et al. 1994, Lee and Beatty 2002). Therefore, studies using a unitary household model may incorrectly measure parental WTP. Since no empirical research has tested the implications of using a unitary household model to estimate parental WTP to reduce environmental risk to children’s health, there is no way to know whether existing estimates are accurate and, if not, the extent of any bias. In estimating parental WTP to reduce risk to children’s health, we will use an intra-household resource allocation modeling framework that includes a unitary model as a sub-case, allowing direct statistical comparison of a family of household models.
Parental WTP estimates will be based on responses to a contingent behavior survey. This project examines decision-making dynamics within households regarding environmental health risks. As a result, the nature of the risks and the decision-making structure are more complex than those affecting the individual assessments usually studied in environmental valuation. To better understand this complexity, we draw on mental models analysis from cognitive science and behavioral decision research to provide a more structured evaluation of the decision context. This analysis is used as the basis for design of our survey instrument.
This multi-disciplinary study has three objectives:
- To provide more comprehensive valuation of reduction in risk of childhood developmental impairment applicable to lead and other neurotoxins by estimating parental willingness to pay to reduce lead-paint hazards. Current regulatory benefits assessments are based on cost-of-illness and human capital approaches (EPA 2000);
- To develop more accurate methods of eliciting parental WTP for protection of children’s health by testing the impacts of using intra-household resource allocation models rather than unitary household models;
- To develop more systematic approaches to developing non-market survey instruments by using mental models to better understand the underlying decision process.
This study has two phases. The first phase uses mental models analysis to elicit “mental maps” of parents’ decisions about reducing their children’s health risks from exposure to lead paint. Parents were interviewed individually and as couples. The interviews focus on parents’ risk perceptions, definition of the decision problem and choice set, and individual parents’ role in joint decision-making. The second phase uses the results of the mental models analysis to develop a stated-preference, conjoint behavior survey (we anticipate using attribute-based techniques) that allows us to estimate the value of improvements to children’s health. In addition to improving survey design, data and analysis from the mental models phase of this study will provide information on how to better target lead abatement programs and education. A pilot-scale survey (250 couples with children under seven) will be conducted in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area and the greater Atlanta, Georgia region.
Progress Summary:
The study funded by STAR Grant RD-83082201 focuses on family decision making and its’ implications for children’s developmental health and health valuation. The study has two phases. The first phase, completed in Spring 2006, involved in-depth personal interviews with 30 couples exploring how perceptions of risk differ between parents in two-parent households, how these parents allocated time and resources to protect their children’s health and how these parents make decisions affecting their children’s health. Results from this study were presented at the April 2006 NCEE Environmental Health Valuation Conference. The second phase of the study is a stated preference survey designed to address the question of how valuation of children’s health might differ between parents and in a household decision. The mental models study was designed to serve a second purpose, providing a more structured alternative to focus groups in designing stated preference surveys. This year was spent designing the stated-preference survey instrument in light of lessons gained from the mental models study.
During Fall 2006, we held three focus groups and 9 “one-on-one” interviews with couples testing modifications to our survey instrument based on the mental models study. This work was conducted in Washington, DC with subjects who meet study protocol sampling criteria. Effort was made to recruit participants from a broad range of backgrounds. The first focus group was held with fathers, a second with mothers, and a third with couples. The instrument was then tested further with individual couples. These tests were designed to simulate actual survey protocols in which parents complete a survey instrument individually and then as couples, but they were done with printed survey instruments instead of the computer because programming must wait until the instrument is well designed.
Winter 2006/2007 and Spring/Summer 2007 were spent programming the survey and doing further survey instrument testing in conjunction with the University of Minnesota Survey Research Center (UMSRC). UMSRC will be administering the survey in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. Further revisions were made to the survey to adapt its format for use on personal computers. We anticipate completing this programming in the coming month. The program will then be tested on a small group of respondents from the eligible pool of participants and will be administered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and in Athens, Georgia. The survey is designed to be administered on individual laptop computers and to store data automatically.
Results to Date
Phase one of the study, which consists of the mental models study has been completed. A report was written on this study and presented at the U.S. EPA Environmental Health Conference in Spring 2005. Dr. Bostrom wrote and presented a second paper based on this phase of the study, which is forthcoming in the Journal of Risk Research.
The substantive results of the mental models study were used in the revision of a draft stated preference survey during this reporting period.
Future Activities:
During the coming year we anticipate finalizing the programming of the stated preference survey and fielding this survey. After the first 50 surveys have been collected we will do preliminary statistical analysis of responses and will further adaptation of the instrument if needed to assure the data collected meets professional quality standards. Because we have done extensive pre-testing of the instrument, we anticipate that any needed revisions will be minor. Once survey administration is completed we will clean and analyze the completed data set. We anticipate having a final report by the end of the next reporting period.
Journal Articles on this Report : 3 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 16 publications | 5 publications in selected types | All 3 journal articles |
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Bostrom A. Lead is like mercury: risk comparison, analogies and mental models. Journal of Risk Research 2008;11(1-2):99-117. |
R830822 (2007) |
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Hoffmann S, Krupnick AJ. Valuing risk to health: children are not little adults. Resources 2004;154:12-17. |
R830822 (2007) |
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Hoffmann S. Since children are not little adults—socially—what’s an environmental economist to do? Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum 2007;17:209-232. |
R830822 (2007) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
Media: indoor air, paint chips; Risk Assessment: exposure, risk, risk assessment, effects, health effects, human health, vulnerability, sensitive populations, dose-response, organism, infants, children, age, susceptibility, cumulative effects; Chemicals, Toxics, Toxic Substances: toxics, heavy metals, lead; Risk Management: treatment remediation; Public Policy: decision making, conjoint analysis, observation, nonmarket valuation, contingent valuation, survey, psychological, preferences, socioeconomic, willingness-to-pay; Scientific Disciplines: social science; Methods/Techniques: modeling, surveys, measurement methods; Geographic Areas: southeast, midatlantic, MD, GA EPA Regions 3 and 4,, RFA, Scientific Discipline, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Health, PHYSICAL ASPECTS, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, Health Risk Assessment, Risk Assessments, Physical Processes, decision-making, Children's Health, Ecology and Ecosystems, Environmental Policy, Economics & Decision Making, Social Science, multi-objective decision making, policy analysis, surveys, ecological risk assessment, economic valuation, decision analysis, decision making, age-related differences, dose-response, exposure, family decision making, market valuation models, standards of value, environmental values, adult valuation of children's health, human exposure, children's vulnerablity, morbidity valuation, willingness to pay (WTP), children's environmental health, public policy, willingness to pay, multi-criteria decision analysisProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.