Social Media Interventions to Address Substance Abuse Issues in the Indian State of Punjab

Failure to accurately weigh the costs and benefits of one's actions is a well-known impediment to economic and social empowerment in many low-income settings. In the Indian state of Punjab, widespread misconceptions exist about substance abuse and addiction. These misconceptions increase people's willingness to try addictive substances, with many recovering addicts stating that they tried addictive substances without realizing how quickly they would become addicted. We implement a contest-based method for producing and selecting media interventions designed to reduce drug use. Contestants similar to our target audience produce short films targeting biased beliefs about substance abuse and addiction in Punjab. Our setting is ideal for evaluating this new mode of content production and selection because (1) the targeted behavioral biases are widespread and clearly defined through our extensive scoping work, and (2) we can deliver content at scale over social media as well as through more formal state channels (e.g., in school screenings) under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Punjab. These films will be benchmarked against videos with former drug users. We plan to utilize administrative data on the usage of government-run de-addiction clinics, state-wide school exam ("board" exam) completion rates, government employment records, and other economic indicators which are likely to be adversely affected by substance dependence.