Though significant research exists on earthquake hazard adjustment adoption more generally, research focused on how information seeking influences planned or actual preparedness behavior is rare, limiting our understanding of how information seeking translates into preparedness. To address this gap, our study tests a proposed model of household seismic hazard adjustment using questionnaire responses of roughly 400 households living in the Portland, OR metropolitan region. The proposed model includes components of the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) with specific emphasis on past information seeking behavior, preparedness behavior, intentions to seek information, and intentions to take protective action. Other components include
risk perception, earthquake experience, affective response, seismic risk zone residency, and demographics. Consistent with previous research, this study finds information seeking behavior to be the strongest influence on preparedness with other important influences being risk perception, affective response, and intentions to prepare. We find weak ties between risk zone residency and earthquake risk perception, though this may be because our sample has little experience with earthquakes and the majority live in the
same earthquake risk zones. Importantly, longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether information seeking and intentions to prepare eventually result in household protective action.
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Public Health Preparedness for Extreme Heat Events
Heat is a dangerous hazard that causes acute heat illness, chronic disease exacerbations, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and a range of injuries. Risks are highest during extreme heat events (EHEs), which challenge the capacity of health systems and other critical infrastructure. EHEs are becoming more frequent and severe, and climate change is driving an increasing proportion of heat-related mortality, necessitating more investment in health protection. Climate-resilient health systems are better positioned for EHEs, and EHE preparedness is a form of disaster risk reduction. Preparedness activities commonly take the form of heat action plans (HAPs), with many examples at various administrative scales. HAP activities can be divided into primary prevention, most important in the pre-event phase; secondary prevention, key to risk reduction early in an EHE;and tertiary prevention, important later in the event phase. After-action reports and other postevent evaluation activities are central to adaptive management of this climate-sensitive hazard.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 2103713
- PAR ID:
- 10521750
- Publisher / Repository:
- Annual Reviews
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Annual Review of Public Health
- Volume:
- 44
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0163-7525
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 301 to 321
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract The risks associated with extreme heat are increasing as heat waves become more frequent and severe across larger areas. As people begin to experience heat waves more often and in more places, how will individuals respond? Measuring experience with heat simply as exposure to extreme temperatures may not fully capture how people subjectively experience those temperatures or their varied impacts on human health. These impacts may also influence an individual’s response to heat and motivate risk-reduction behaviors. If subjectively experiencing negative health effects from extreme heat promotes protective actions, these effects could be used alongside temperature exposure to more accurately measure extreme heat experience and inform risk prevention and communication strategies according to local community needs. Using a multilevel regression model, this study analyzes georeferenced national survey data to assess whether Americans’ exposure to extreme heat and experience with its health effects are associated with self-reported protective behaviors. Subjective experience with heat-related health symptoms strongly predicted all reported protective behaviors while measured heat exposure had a much weaker influence. Risk perception was strongly associated with some behaviors. This study focuses particularly on the practice of checking on family, friends, and neighbors during a heat wave, which can be carried out by many people. For this behavior, age, race/ethnicity, gender, and income, along with subjective experience and risk perception, were important predictors. Results suggest that the subjective experience of extreme heat influences health-related behavioral responses and should therefore be considered when designing or improving local heat protection plans.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Abstract Message diffusion and message persuasion are two important aspects of success for official risk messages about hazards. Message diffusion enables more people to receive lifesaving messages, and message persuasion motivates them to take protective actions. This study helps to identify win-win message strategies by investigating how an under-examined factor, message content that is theoretically important to message persuasion, influences message diffusion for official risk messages about heat hazards on Twitter. Using multilevel negative binomial regression models, the respective and cumulative effects of four persuasive message factors, hazard intensity, health risk susceptibility, health impact , and response instruction on retweet counts were analyzed using a dataset of heat-related tweets issued by U.S. National Weather Service accounts. Two subsets of heat-related tweets were also analyzed: 1) heat warning tweets about current or anticipated extreme heat events and 2) tweets about non-extreme heat events. This study found that heat-related tweets that mentioned more types of persuasive message factors were retweeted more frequently, and so were two subtypes of heat-related tweets. Mentions of hazard intensity also consistently predicted increased retweet counts. Mentions of health impacts positively influenced message diffusion for heat-related tweets and tweets about non-extreme heat events. Mentions of health risk susceptibility and response instructions positively predicted retweet counts for tweets about non-extreme heat events and tweets about official extreme heat warnings respectively. In the context of natural hazards, this research informs practitioners with evidence-based message strategies to increase message diffusion on social media. Such strategies also have the potential to improve message persuasion.more » « less
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In this paper, we share the theories that guided the design of an interprofessional education course on Climate Change and Public Health Preparedness and how the course supported students’ professional interest and action competence as they move through their education and into their professional work in the context of our unfolding climate crisis. The course was guided by the public health emergency preparedness domains and was built to allow for students to explore applications of the content for themselves and their own profession. We designed the learning activities to support personal and professional interest development and help students move into perceived and demonstrated action competence. For the evaluation of our course, we asked the following research questions: What kinds of personal and professional commitments to action did students propose by the end of the course? Did these vary in depth and specificity and by the number of credits they enrolled in? In what ways did students develop personal and professional action competence over the course? Finally, how did they show personal, professional, and collective agency related to the course content on adaptation, preparedness, and mitigation of the health impacts from climate change? Using qualitative analysis guided by action competence and interest development theories, we coded student writing from course assignments. We also conducted comparative statistical analysis to assess differential impacts for students who enrolled for one versus three credits. The results show that this course design supported students’ progression of knowledge and perceived ability in specific individual and professional collective actions to reduce the health impacts of climate change.
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Abstract Extreme heat events are one of the deadliest weather-related hazards in the United States and are increasing in frequency and severity as a result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Further, some subpopulations may be more vulnerable than others because of social, economic, and political factors that create disparities in hazard impacts and responses. Vulnerability is also affected by risk perceptions, which can influence protective behaviors. In this study, we use national survey data to investigate the association of key sociodemographic factors with public risk perceptions of heatwaves. We find that risk perceptions are most associated with income, race/ethnicity, gender, and disability status. Age, an important predictor of heat mortality, had smaller associations with heat risk perceptions. Low-income, nonwhite, and disabled individuals tend to perceive themselves to be at greater risks from heatwaves than other subpopulations, corresponding to their elevated risk. Men have lower risk perceptions than women despite their higher mortality and morbidity from heat. This study helps to identify subpopulations in the United States who see themselves as at risk from extreme heat and can inform heat risk communication and other risk reduction practices.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-071421-025508
