Ganguly co-authors study of forever chemicals

The study, The public's puzzling reluctance to detect and mitigate exposure to perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), was co-authored by Ganguly, Samuel Lockhart Priestley, Kent D. Messer, and Marco A. Palma.

Working with her co-authors, Ganguly developed research questions, designed and implemented the pre-registered field experiment, and managed data collection. She also led the data analysis, drafted the manuscript, presented the findings at multiple conferences, and guided the project through revisions to publication. In addition, she wrote a grant proposal to support sharing the findings with key audiences which was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

PFAS are a large class of synthetic chemicals used in many everyday products. They can be found in dental floss, food packaging, raincoats and Teflon pans, essentially products designed to repel heat, water or grease.

“They are often called forever chemicals because they don’t break down easily in the environment and can accumulate in our bodies over time, thereby increasing exposure,” Ganguly said. “Concern about PFAS has been around for years and has been highlighted in popular media such as the movie Dark Waters.”

More recently, public concern has intensified as federal regulators tightened standards for PFAS exposure.

“From 2022 to 2024, the EPA dramatically revised health advisory warnings around PFAS and passed an enforceable standard that reduced the maximum permissible standards for six types of PFAS to four parts per trillion, which is less than a drop of water in a thousand Olympic-sized pools,” Ganguly said. “This indicates that PFAS is more harmful than previously thought.”

Against that backdrop, Ganguly and her co-authors wanted to better understand how people were responding to increased media attention and evolving scientific information about PFAS.

“As new standards are rolled out and put in place, people continue to be exposed to PFAS,” Ganguly said. “Moreover, the rollout will be costly, and some of these costs will be passed down to the public.”

She said the timing of the study allowed researchers to examine whether people were willing to take personal financial steps to detect or reduce their exposure.

“Most prior work relies on hypothetical survey responses,” she said. “In contrast, we used an incentivized field experiment in which participants made real, consequential purchase decisions. This allows us to measure revealed willingness to pay for detection and mitigation measures, not just stated concern.”

To conduct the study, researchers recruited 1,005 adult participants at malls, local businesses, and community events. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four information treatments: general information about PFAS; information about PFAS health impacts and exposure pathways; a factual news excerpt describing newly identified health risks; or a combination of health information and news.

After reviewing the assigned information, participants placed real bids, expressed as a share of the retail price, for National Sanitation Foundation and American National Standards Institute-certified PFAS water and blood test kits, as well as carbon filters designed to remove PFAS from drinking water.

The researchers found that combining health-impact information with media coverage was the most effective approach for encouraging participants to submit higher bids.

To support the experiment, the products were displayed on-site alongside brochures and informational materials, Ganguly said.

Researchers selected the Mid-Atlantic region for the study because it contains nearly 180 PFAS superfund contamination sites and has experienced extensive PFAS-related media coverage.

“If awareness and willingness to pay is low even in a region like this, it may be even lower elsewhere,” Ganguly said. “Though in our study, we are careful not to claim national representativeness.”

Ultimately, the researchers wanted to determine which communication strategies were most effective at influencing real purchasing decisions related to PFAS detection and mitigation.

“In a world where people face an onslaught of information and constant demands on attention, simply providing more facts may not be enough,” Ganguly said. “So, we used different information frames to understand which communication strategies are most likely to motivate protective action and which ones, if any, backfire.”

One of the study’s most notable findings, she said, was the disconnect between participants’ stated concerns and their actual spending decisions.

“Participants agree that PFAS testing is beneficial for the community, and at least half of the participants agree that PFAS is a big problem, and they are concerned about it,” Ganguly said. “However, when presented with the opportunity to obtain and use protective measures by bearing a share of the cost of the equipment, participants revealed limited willingness to pay.”

Looking ahead, Ganguly said the findings carry several policy implications. She said information about PFAS should be shared through relatively neutral sources, significant subsidies may be necessary to encourage wider public adoption of protective measures, and policymakers may need stronger incentives to increase testing participation.

Researchers also found participants were more willing to pay for products that reduced exposure than for products that merely detected it, with higher bids placed on PFAS-removing filters than on exposure tests.