Gold eco-toxicology: Assessment of the knowledge gap on the environmental and health effects of mercury between artisanal small scale and medium scale gold miners in Ghana

The use of mercury is a prevalent characteristic of Ghana's artisanal small and medium scale goldmining sub-sector. This however has deleterious effects on the environment and on human health. Considerable efforts have hitherto been made to shift artisanal small and medium scale gold miners' behavior towards more sustainable practices although with limited success. Therefore, understanding how knowledge mediates the connection between perception of danger and behavioral change is essential. To evaluate the knowledge gap in the environmental and health effects of mercury exposure using four counterfactual decomposition methods, a cross-sectional survey of 500 artisanal gold miners (300 small-scale and 200 medium-scale) in Ghana was conducted. The findings indicated that the distinction in productive features accounted for the bulk of the knowledge disparity between artisanal small scale and medium scale gold miners. Regardless of the decomposition technique used, level of education contributed the biggest part of the general explained knowledge gap. Artisanal medium scale gold miners (more educated) had relatively higher levels of knowledge indicating that the knowledge gap of mercury's environmental and health effect between artisanal small scale and medium scale gold mine workers was possibly as a result of compositional attributes instead of contextual factors. Notwith-standing the considerable level of knowledge exhibited by the highly educated cohort of the artisanal gold miners, this did not automatically result in adopting cleaner production behaviours. This means that the processes that reconcile the effect of knowledge on the production practice and behavior of artisanal small-scale and medium scale gold miners in the working environment are crucial.