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Accounting for heterogeneity in behavioural responses to health-risk information treatments
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Accounting for heterogeneity in behavioural responses to health-risk information treatments

O. Ashton Morgan, John C. Whitehead and William L. Huth
Journal of environmental economics and policy, Vol.5(3), pp.283-297
09/01/2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/21606544.2015.1115747
Web of Science ID: WOS:000388317900003

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Abstract

Traditional revealed and stated preference models consider a typical individual's behavioural responses to various policy-based information treatments. For some cost-benefit applications in which resource managers are concerned with responses from a representative individual, this is sufficient. However, as behavioural responses to information treatments can vary across respondents, we develop a latent class analysis with covariates to examine unobserved heterogeneity responses to health-risk information treatments. Results from a probabilistic model indicate that classes of consumers respond differently to the health-risk information treatments. Principally, we find that the media form of the information treatment is important, with raw consumer groups typically more responsive to a brochure information treatment, while cooked oyster consumers are more responsive to the same information in a video format. We also find that a proposed US Food and Drug Administration policy on processing all raw oysters before market has a greater effect on reducing demand for consumers of cooked oysters. However, with an associated price premium, all consumer classes reduce demand. Overall, the results suggest that future policy-based research could benefit from examining potential heterogeneity in individuals' responses to risk information treatments in order to fully understand the efficacy of treatments on behaviour.

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