Abstract
We examine the changes in economic attitudes toward mHealth services at four different levels of pricing, i.e., economic attitude elasticity (EAE), among 2129 Indian villagers who participated in two free health camps. We employed an innovative contingent valuation survey instrument for data collection and a piecewise latent growth modeling method for data analysis. Three key findings emerged from the study. First, we found that when mHealth services are free, three groups of villagers who (a) did not have mobile phones, (b) who shared mobile phones, or (c) who owned dedicated personal mobile phones showed different economic attitudes at one health camp, while the latter two groups showed similar attitudes at the other camp. Second, when the price for mHealth services changed from free to less than 100 Indian rupees (INR), the two groups who shared and who owned mobile phones had an identical EAE, while the group who had no mobile phones displayed a different EAE from the other two groups who had access to phones at both camps. Third, when the price changed from less than 100 INR to between 100 and 200 INR and to greater than 200 INR, similar cross-group EAE patterns were found at both camps. Our findings provide insights for policy makers in developing countries to promote the use of mHealth services among the socioeconomically disadvantaged.
Recommended Citation
Li, Xixi; Rai, Arun; and Krishnan, Ganapathy, "Understanding Economic Attitude Elasticity toMHealth Services among the Underprivileged in Rural India: A Piecewise Latent Growth Modeling Approach" (2015). DIGIT 2015 Proceedings. 3.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/digit2015/3