Protective behaviour on artisanal gold mines: the relevance of knowledge, risk perception and access to equipment

• Knowledge about mercury and protection techniques against exposure are low;. • Higher knowledge of mercury is not correlated with higher personal risk perception;. • Higher risk perception is not correlated with higher protective behaviour. • Receiving personal protective equipment for free increases protective behaviour;. • Access to personal protective equipment was more important than risk perception or knowledge. Many artisanal miners use mercury, a toxic metal, to extract gold from ore, without protecting themselves. In this study, we analyse the role of knowledge, risk perception, and improved access to protective equipment on artisanal miners’ protective behaviour. We combine survey results with a field experiment involving about 250 miners. While more than half of the miners perceive mercury as dangerous to their health, their knowledge about mercury is low despite ongoing educational programmes on the mines. Few had heard about mercury poisoning, could mention any of the critical symptoms of mercury contamination, or knew how to properly protect themselves from mercury. Risk perception was not significantly correlated to knowledge of mercury, previous training or protective behaviour. However, improving access to protective equipment by providing it for free had a large positive impact on protective behaviour one year later. Our results suggest that international policy efforts to address the mercury problem through the Minamata Convention should include access to personal protective equipment as a priority. This will have significant health benefits for miners in the short term while countries work to transition to mercury-free mining in the long term.