Adapting to the Invisible Threat: Expectations, Information, and Behavioral Responses to Air Pollution

2025-09-01T11:09:17+00:00

Objective: Air pollution is a leading environmental cause of morbidity and mortality, yet individuals in high-risk areas often fail to take optimal protective actions. This "adaptation gap" may be driven by inaccurate expectations about pollution levels and associated health risks. This study experimentally investigates the causal chain linking information provision, the formation of environmental expectations, and subsequent adaptive behaviors.

Methods: We conducted a randomized controlled trial with 1,200 households in Lahore, Pakistan, a city experiencing some of the world's most severe air pollution. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three arms: a control group, a group receiving daily real-time air quality index (AQI) information via text message, or a group receiving both real-time information and a 24-hour AQI forecast. We collected baseline and endline survey data on pollution expectations, health symptoms, time use, and expenditures on averting measures like masks and air purifiers.

Results: At baseline, we find that individuals' expectations of air quality are poorly correlated with objective measures and exhibit systematic optimistic biases. Both the information and forecast treatments significantly improved the accuracy of participants' expectations (p<0.01). However, the translation into adaptive behavior was modest. While the forecast group showed a small but significant increase in the use of protective masks, we find no significant effects on other key behaviors, such as reducing time spent outdoors or investing in air purifiers.

Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that while providing salient, actionable information can successfully de-bias individuals' expectations about environmental threats, this may be insufficient to induce significant behavioral change. This highlights a critical disconnect between knowing and acting, suggesting that policies must also address the tangible and behavioral barriers that prevent households from translating improved risk awareness into self-protection.

Journal of Management and Economics

Adapting to the Invisible Threat: Expectations, Information, and Behavioral Responses to Air Pollution