Concern or apathy: the attitude of the public toward urban air pollution

It is important to understand public attitudes when designing policy instruments to motivate actions. Attitude is partially socially constructed and thus must be studied locally rather than inferred from other settings. This study explored public attitudes toward air pollution among Beijing residents through interviews and thematic analysis. In contrast to previous studies mostly focusing on a certain dimension of attitudes, we attempted to show an initial picture of attitudes in three dimensions, knowledge and belief, perception and concern, and covert and overt behaviors, and identify underlying factors accounting for such attitudes. The results showed that the interviewees largely knew the sources and impacts of air pollution but also demonstrated misunderstandings; half of them perceived air pollution as ‘severe’ and three-fourths of them showed little concern about air pollution; their protective and mitigation responsive behaviors were inadequate. Factors affecting such attitudes, both existing and missing in current literature, were identified. Perceived air pollution is determined by sensory cues and imagination, and mediated by lived experiences and place identity. Lack of concern about air pollution can largely be explained by a feeling of uncontrollability and the crowding effect in competing for attention. This lack is further influenced by the perceived benefits of living in large cities, perceived fairness of the impact across the population, and perceived delay of the health impacts posed by air pollution. Protective behaviors, specifically wearing facemasks, are influenced by perceived severity, vulnerability, efficacy, and barriers. Mitigation behavior, which refers to reducing car use in this case, is discouraged by a lack of feeling responsible and by perceived inconvenience and ineffectiveness. At an academic level, the results of this exploratory study are expected to provide a base for further investigations of factors affecting public attitudes. From a policy perspective, the results should provide information for designing policy instruments to raise awareness and motivate actions to cope with air pollution.     

Perception of risk from air pollution and reported behaviors: a cross-sectional survey study in four cities

We investigate how public perceptions of air pollution, risk beliefs and self-reported actions to limit personal exposure to ambient air pollution vary across cities. Our analysis also examines the extent to which a number of individual-level variables are associated to self-protective and information-seeking actions due to bad air quality. Data was collected through a questionnaire survey in four cities with a total sample of 1202 inhabitants. We found a moderate variation in the subjective evaluation of local air pollution between cities, as well as in the levels of annoyance and distress due to air pollution. There was relatively little variation in perceived severity, worry and self-reported actions. No variation was found for self-reported attention to air quality levels and controllability beliefs regarding the risks from air pollution. Preliminary modeling of four self-reported actions suggests that self-reported attention to air quality levels and worry are important predictors of self-protective and information seeking behavior. We conclude that both personal and contextual factors have to be taken into account in order to understand public reactions to outdoor urban air pollution. We discuss the implications in terms of risk and health communication.     

Public perception and responses to environmental pollution and health risks: evaluation and implication from a national survey in China

Concerns have been raised among policy-makers, researchers and Chinese citizens regarding the widespread environmental degradation that has occurred in China in recent decades. Years of environmental education and media coverage on pollution harm and health risks have not only provided information about pollution to the public, but have also strengthened people’s concerns. However, an ‘intense focus’ on pollution is far from sufficient; at present, it is necessary to assess to what extent the public can identify specific environmental conditions and whether they are ready to cope with potential health risks from pollution. Through face-to-face surveys on trains and at railway stations nationwide, we investigated public experiences of environmental pollution accidents, perceptions of local environmental risks (focused on air and water quality) and responses to local environmental conditions. By comparing public perceptions with official environmental monitoring data-sets, we concluded that the accuracy of perceptions related to four environmental factors ranged from 40 to 60% at the individual scale. Furthermore, the accuracies increased approximately 2–10% at the county scale and 10–30% at the city scale, highlighting the possible benefits of collective intelligence in helping the public to identify existing environment conditions more accurately. Additionally, despite great concerns about pollution and health, public attitudes toward coping with the dangers of pollution and health risks were found to be indifferent. Our study revealed factors at the individual, social and governmental levels that led to low levels of perception accuracy and response scores. Thereout, we stressed potential pathways to improve the accuracy of public perception and the positivity of responses. The survey results indicate that there is a long way to go before the public is well prepared to cope with the risks of pollution; as a consequence, it is necessary to improve both personal environmental awareness as well as governmental, social and commercial responses to pollution events.     

The regulations for indoor air pollution in Japan: a public health perspective

In recent years public health problems caused by indoor air pollution, known as ‘Sick Building Syndrome in housing’, or ‘Sick House Syndrome’ in Japan, have been drawing strong public concern. After conducting extensive exposure assessment, government authorities have taken effective measures to solve the problem. However, as a result of diversification and increase in quantities of industrial chemicals, existing regulations do not cover enough ranges of various potential hazardous chemicals. Hence, the regulations seek to be changed from hazard‐based regulation to a risk‐based one. Good indoor air quality (IAQ), which does not pose unacceptable health risks from all pollutants affecting indoor air, should be ensured for all public people. The objective of this study is to clarify the remaining issues to be solved urgently, related to the regulations to ensure a good IAQ. We reviewed enormous numbers of the existing governmental and industrial voluntary standards and/or guidelines, literature and documents concerning IAQ research in the past 40 years. Our results showed six subjects from those remaining issues. Based on these subjects we created a new scheme to control the IAQ; we especially regarded a comprehensive labeling system as one of the important strategies.     

Detecting local environmental change: the role of experience in shaping risk judgments about global warming

Anthropogenic climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events (e.g. flooding, heat waves, and wildfires). As a result, it is often reasoned that as more individuals experience unusual weather patterns that are consistent with changing climate conditions, the more their concern about global warming will increase, and the more motivated they will become to respond and address the problem effectively. Social science research evaluating the relationships between personal experiences with and risk perceptions of climate change, however, show mixed results. Here, we analyze a representative statewide survey of Floridians and compare their risk perceptions of five-year trends in climate change with local weather station data from the five years preceding the survey. The results show that Floridians are unable to detect five-year increases in temperature, but some can detect changes in precipitation. Despite an inability to detect the correct direction of change, respondents were significantly more likely than not to correctly identify the season in which most change occurred. Nevertheless, compared to local experience, risk perceptions of climate change were more strongly predicted by subjective experiences of environmental change, personal beliefs about climate change, and political ideology. Results from the study suggest that long-term changes in climate patterns and extreme weather events need to be interpreted by weather and climate experts within the context of climate change; individuals cannot be expected to detect or comprehend such complex linkages directly.     

Risk perception and risk management in the Middle East market: theory and practice of multinational enterprises in Saudi Arabia

This exploratory study investigates the risk perception and risk management strategies of Western multinational enterprises in the Middle East. A sample of 49 German companies operating in Saudi Arabia provides the empirical setting for this research. The study reveals that cultural risk is assessed as more important in the business environment than political, financial, and economic risk. The most critical risk factors are not sufficiently included in the methodology of country risk measures, which are often used as a source for country‐specific risk information. In terms of risk management strategies, participating firms use mostly informal approaches rather than structured hedging or insurance products. Furthermore, we find that firm size has implications on the perception of some risk factors and for the level of risk management sophistication.     

The antecedent role of personal environmental values in the relationships among trust in companies,information processing and risk perception

Trust and risk perception are important issues for industries such as petrochemical companies, typically considered ‘less trustworthy’ because of the hazards associated with their activities. In this context, individual’s trust in companies may have influence on information processing mode that individual adopts to reach a judgement such as risk perception associated with industrial hazards. We take the heuristic-systematic theory (HSM) as the model for processing information about industrial risk, with trust in companies as its antecedent and risk perception as its consequence. However, this process may be influenced by factors such as personal specific values. This paper analyses, to our knowledge for the first time, the antecedent role of personal values towards environmental issues in the HSM of information processing. The model was tested using data from interviews with 992 residents in an area of the province of Castelló (Spain) close to a petrochemical complex. Structured equation models were used to analyse the data. The results demonstrate the proposed relationships. The main contribution of this paper is the corroboration of the direct and indirect effects of personal environmental values on the variables that make up the trust in companies-HSM of information processing-risk perception sequence. Finally, we recommend that the companies of the petrochemical complex consider the frank, open and bidirectional communication with the residents as the key element to break the association among pro-environmental values, distrust in the companies and perception of the risk.     

The siting of a research centre on clean coal combustion and CO2 capture in Spain: Some notes on the relationship between trust and lack of public information

This paper aims to gain a better understanding of the role played by trust in the context of scarcity of public information, vis‐à‐vis the installation of a Centre for Investigation in Advanced Technologies (Centro de Investigación de Tecnologías Avanzadas, CITA) to be located in a coal‐rich region of Spain. Data from semi‐structured interviews (n = 15), a questionnaire survey (n = 400) and focus group sessions (2) are drawn together to reveal how the local community perceives the proposed CITA scheme, and how this relates to the level of trust placed in the project promoters. Results illustrate how a lay community gives meaning to an unknown technological project, trying to place it within its appropriate economic, social and political context, and relating it to prior knowledge and experiences. Results also show that, in contrast to certain risk communication theories, the public is able to place trust in a technological activity and their promoters despite a general lack of knowledge on either.