Evaluation of the Cova Circuit Rider-supported in-line chlorination program
Policy Context
Passive in-line chlorination (ILC) has shown significant potential to provide rural communities with consistent access to safely-managed water, by disinfecting microbial drinking water contamination and reducing childhood diarrhea. Passive chlorination refers to using a device that requires no electricity or user input to continuously and automatically dose chlorine into drinking water. Scaling up ILC requires implementing effective and sustainable operation and management models that incentivize high chlorination rates. An operation and management model that has demonstrated potential to allow scale-up of ILC is the Cova Circuit Rider model. The non-profit organization, Cova, partners with local community water boards to address water access in rural communities, by installing passive chlorinators into existing piped networks. They provide ongoing support through routine visits, offering technical assistance, water quality monitoring, and capacity building, and are piloting an additional incentive program with the goal of increasing community adherence to chlorination.
Study Design
The project is performing an impact evaluation to leverage a planned expansion of the Circuit Rider supported inline chlorination program and the rollout of community-level chlorination incentives in rural Honduras. Cova is implementing the intervention in new communities throughout the next year, enabling an impact evaluation.
The study enrolls 220 communities with data collection occurring at four time points between August 2025 and December 2026. Communities not receiving the Cova program and a chlorinator are in the control group, and communities receiving the Cova program and a chlorinator are in the treatment group. Communities that are in the control group and become part of the Cova program, including having a chlorinator installed, during any of the study time periods will move into the treatment group. Data collection during all time points includes household, plumber, and water board president surveys. Additionally, E. coli and antibiotic resistant E. coli sampling and free chlorine residual monitoring in both the tap water and the stored drinking water in three households per community are being performed.
The study also evaluates an additional chlorination incentive intervention implemented by Cova. At the start of time point 2, community incentives will be rolled out in half the communities with installed chlorinators. Community incentives will be split into monetary incentives and non monetary incentives. For the monetary incentive, communities that have >=0.1ppm chlorine residual in their routine monitoring for three months in a row receive an item from the list of provided supplies (~$30). For the non-monetary incentive, community chlorination adherence is ranked in a public dashboard each month, with communities attaining >=0.1ppm chlorine residual receiving a star each month. The community at the end of the year that receives the most stars is awarded a certificate in a public recognition ceremony.
The project has received IRB approval for the study and has created field and lab protocols. The project has designed and begun the sample collection, including water sampling and surveys. The project has also worked with Cova to complete the design of the incentives intervention. The enumeration staff were trained and the enumerators have collected household surveys, plumber surveys, and water board surveys, along with E. coli samples from household taps, E. coli samples from household stored water, antibiotic resistant E. coli samples from household taps and antibiotic resistant E. coli samples from household stored water.
Results and Policy Lessons
Results are forthcoming and will be used to inform scaling of in-line chlorination for rural settings.
