Sendhil Mullainathan: Solving social problems with a nudge

Following are the notes taken from the lecture given by Sendhil Mullainathan:-

Diarrhea can be attributed as one of the major reasons for child mortality in India.  In 1960, India had child mortality rate closer to 24%. Diarrhea was one of the major reasons for the mortality. The efforts were taken to reduce the deaths due to diarrhea. One of the major solutions was the use of oral rehydration salts.

Current child mortality rate in India is closer to 6.5%. Nearly 400,000 children die annually in India even today. Many of these deaths are preventable.The problem with eliminating the problems like diarrhea completely lies in educating people about the solutions. Most of the people do not believe in the solutions ,as the solutions don’t seem to be logical to them. If we ask the people in remote villages in India: ” Should we increase or decrease the water consumption for the kids having diarrhea?”

At lease 50 percent of the people would answer that the water consumption should be reduced.The problem lies in the education of the people about solution to the problem. Most of the times scientific
advance do not gurantee a solution as long as the awareness regarding the solution is not generated among the people. Complete elimination of the diarrhea needs generation of awareness regarding the use
of rehydrations salts as a prominent solution for diarrhea.