Determinants of risk perception towards toxic landfills and incinerators: how social factors can play a role (original) (raw)
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Evaluating Determinants of Environmental Risk Perception for Risk Management in Contaminated Sites
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2014
Understanding the differences in the risk judgments of residents of industrial communities potentially provides insights into how to develop appropriate risk communication strategies. This study aimed to explore citizens' fundamental understanding of risk-related judgments and to identify the factors contributing to perceived risks. An exploratory model was created to investigate the public's risk judgments. In this model, the relationship between laypeople's perceived risks and the factors related to the physical nature of risks (such as perceived probability of environmental contamination, probability of receiving impacts, and severity of catastrophic consequences) were examined by means of multiple regression analysis. Psychological factors, such as the ability to control the risks, concerns, experiences, and perceived benefits of industrial development were also included in the analysis. The Maptaphut industrial area in Rayong Province, Thailand was selected as a case study. A survey of 181 residents of communities experiencing different levels of hazardous gas contamination revealed rational risk judgments by inhabitants of high-risk and moderate-risk communities, based on their perceived probability of contamination, probability of receiving impacts, and perceived catastrophic consequences. However, risks assessed by people in low-risk communities could not be rationally explained and were influenced by their collective experiences.
Journal of Risk Research, 2013
Over the last five decades, social science researchers have examined how the public perceives the risks associated with a variety of environmental health and safety (EHS) hazards. The body of literature that has been emerged diverse both in the methodology employed to collect and analyze data and in the subject of study. The findings have confirmed that risk perceptions vary between groups of individuals as well as between categories of EHS risks. However, the extant literature on EHS risk perceptions has failed to provide empirical insights into how risk perceptions can be best explained according to the interplay of both (1) the category of EHS hazard appraised and (2) the prominent individual-level characteristics that best explain observed risk perception differences. This study addresses this deficiency in the literature by providing insights into the individual and cumulative roles that various individual-level variables play in characterizing risk perceptions to various categories of EHS risks including 'agentic risks' like street drug use and cigarette smoking, 'emerging technological risks' like nanoparticles and cloning, and 'manufacturing risks' like air and chemical pollution. Our data are drawn from the 2009 Citizens, Science, and Emerging Technologies national study of United States households that investigated public perceptions of EHS risks, traditional and emerging media use, and various individual characteristics like personal demographics, socioeconomic factors, and perceptual filters. The findings show that some categories of EHS risks like those associated with emerging technologies may be more easily predicted than other categories of risks and that individual-level characteristics vary in their explanative power between risk categories even among a single sample of respondents.
Risk Analysis, 2008
This case study examines the hazard and risk perception and the need for decontamination according to people exposed to soil pollution. Using an ecological-symbolic approach (ESA), a multidisciplinary model is developed that draws upon psychological and sociological perspectives on risk perception and includes ecological variables by using data from experts' risk assessments. The results show that hazard perception is best predicted by objective knowledge, subjective knowledge, estimated knowledge of experts, and the assessed risks. However, experts' risk assessments induce an increase in hazard perception only when residents know the urgency of decontamination. Risk perception is best predicted by trust in the risk management. Additionally, need for decontamination relates to hazard perception, risk perception, estimated knowledge of experts, and thoughts about sustainability. In contrast to the knowledge deficit model, objective and subjective knowledge did not significantly relate to risk perception and need for decontamination. The results suggest that residents can make a distinction between hazards in terms of the seriousness of contamination on the one hand, and human health risks on the other hand. Moreover, next to the importance of social determinants of environmental risk perception, this study shows that the output of experts' risk assessments—or the objective risks—can create a hazard awareness rather than an alarming risk consciousness, despite residents' distrust of scientific knowledge.
The Question of Risk: Incorporating Community Perceptions into Environmental Risk Assessments
1994
The environmental justice movement has seen some successes. After years of neglect, the federal government and several states are directing legislative and executive efforts towards reforming siting processes and remedying discriminatory enforcement of environmental regulations. Community opposition in general has proved to be quite powerful in some instances. Since the passage of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976, there has been only one new siting of a hazardous waste landfill and few new sitings of hazardous waste incinerators. To a lesser extent, municipal solid waste and medical waste incinerators have also been successfully blocked or delayed. However, certain factors behind these successes suggest that procedural reforms of the siting process, though sorely needed, may not provide a complete solution to disparate dumping unless they also address the conflict over the nature of risk and how it is measured. This Article discusses the issues of perception of risk and citizen involvement in environmentally sensitive siting decisions. Part I describes the different phases of the siting process, i.e., the various determinations made at certain points during the process, the factors that enter into these calculations, and the interests implicated in each. Part II discusses the gap between citizens' and government agencies' understanding of environmental problems: what constitutes an acceptable risk, how risk is measured, and who makes these decisions. Part III sets out ways in which community groups can more effectively incorporate their concerns into the siting process and argues that public officials should give greater weight to public perceptions of risk.
Survey on Public Perceptions of Environmental Risks
The aim of this project was to understand the differences between public perception and scientific assessment of environmental risks and the main factors influencing the evolution of public perspectives in Europe. The project used a mixed methodology research approach, including a survey of experts and focus groups with members of the public. Overall, the environmental risks seen as being of highest concern by members of the public were similar to the top risks identified by experts. However, consumption habits appeared high in the list of concerns for experts but was generally ranked much lower across the focus groups. Waste was an issue of concern to public participants that was not ranked highly by experts. Factors that influence lay perceptions of risk include individual identity and background, collective cultural, institutional and socio-political systems, social values and degree of trust in authorities. A number of qualitative characteristics of environmental risks were also found to influence many aspects of lay assessments of environmental risks. These included factors such as scale and severity, proximity and personal control. Discussions in the focus groups showed that many people were using multiple sources of information to develop their understanding of what are often complex environmental issues
BMC Public Health
Background: The start-up of the Turin municipal solid waste incineration plant (2013) was accompanied by surveillance of health effects, which included a human biomonitoring campaign. Here we present the results of the risk perception survey of local residents before the plant went into operation. Methods: The survey sample was 394 local residents: 198 residing near the plant (exposed group) and 196 residing in an area distant from the plant site (unexposed group). The survey questionnaire investigated awareness of environmental and health issues, including a section on the perception of environmental health risks. Multivariate Poisson regressions were performed to determine the differences in risk perception between the two groups (exposed vs. unexposed). Results: The exposed group was more concerned about natural hazards (prevalence ratio [PR] 1.61; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.99-2.61), anthropogenic hazards (PR 1.35; 95% CI 1.03-1.77), and waste management (PR 1.19; 95% CI 0.94-1.50). There were no significant differences in opinions about environmental pollution-related diseases between the two groups, though the exposed considered themselves to be at risk for developing these diseases. The survey population placed its trust more in health care providers than in any other category. Conclusions: The risk perception survey questionnaire yielded data that enabled a better understanding and interpretation of the social context: residents living near the incineration plant were more concerned than those living distant from it, especially about anthropogenic hazards. This information was subsequently incorporated into the design the communication tools.
Archives of Public Health
The association between industrial pollution and human health is of high importance for public health. Living near industrially contaminated sites (ICSs) and being exposed to increasing concentrations of environmental pollutants along with disadvantaged social and economic conditions result in an increased occurrence of diseases. There are 16 identified industrially contaminated sites in the Republic of North Macedonia, and of all of them, chemical industry AD OHIS - Skopje and lindane dump located near the plant, according to almost all categorizations,has been evaluated to pose the highest level of ecological and health risk, although there has been no recent evidence about these issues. The main aim of this study was to obtain general information about risk perception of resident population living around and near AD OHIS in the Skopje region. Methods: A standardized and modified questionnaire was sent to the participants in an electronic form by e-mail and was published on social...
Environmental Risks Perception Among Citizens Living Near Industrial Plants: A Cross-Sectional Study
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
The present work is a cross-sectional study aimed at assessing the risk perception and evaluating the community outrage linked to environmental factors among a self-selected sample of citizens living in an area characterized by the presence of industrial structures of high emotional impact. An anonymous questionnaire was administered to the population by publishing a Google form URL code in local and regional newspapers and via social media. The resulting data were entered on Excel and analyzed. Qualitative variables were summarized with absolute and relative (percentage) frequencies. The results showed that the event that causes the greatest worry was air pollution, with 92.6% of the respondents stating that they perceived the problem as “very” or “quite” worrying. Furthermore, all the health problems investigated in relation to environmental quality aroused concern among the interviewees, with 93.1% believing there was a cause-effect relationship between environmental quality and ...