How people respond to wildfire smoke

Date:
August 30, 2021
Source:
Stanford University
Summary:
Interviews with Northern California residents reveal that social
norms and social support are essential for understanding protective
health behaviors during wildfire smoke events -- information that
could be leveraged to improve public health outcomes.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
As wildfires become commonplace in the western U.S. and around the world, checking the daily air quality warning has become as routine as checking
the weather. But what people do with that data -- whether it drives
them to slip on a mask before stepping outside or seal up their homes
against smoke -- is not always straightforward or rational, according
to new Stanford research.


==========================================================================
In a case study of Northern California residents, Stanford researchers
explored the psychological factors and social processes that drive
responses to wildfire smoke. The research, which ultimately aims to
uncover approaches for helping people better protect themselves, shows
that social norms and social support are essential for understanding
protective health actions during wildfire smoke events. The findings
appeared this month in the journal Climate Risk Management.

"It's important to understand how people behave so that public health communications professionals can potentially intervene and promote safer behavior that mitigates risk," said lead study author Francisca Santana,
a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment
and Resources (E-IPER). "This kind of qualitative work is a first step
so that we can learn how people are using information and interacting to
make decisions. We can then look at where there might be leverage points
or opportunities to promote more protective behavior." Exposure to
wildfire smoke can irritate the lungs, cause inflammation, impact the
immune system and increase susceptibility to lung infections, including
the virus that causes COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. While other studies have examined how people
respond to evacuation orders, little has been done to understand what's happening with wildfire smoke exposure if people don't -- or can't --
leave the area, according to senior study author Gabrielle Wong-Parodi,
an assistant professor of Earth system science at Stanford's School of
Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth).

"It resonated with me, the things that people were doing to try to protect themselves in the absence of access to effective ways to reduce their
wildfire smoke exposure," Wong-Parodi said, referring to a resident
who breathed through a wet bandana in an attempt to filter out toxic
smoke particles. "It's urgent that we come up with strategies that are realistic for what people are going through." Study authors Santana and
David Gonzalez, who worked on the study as a PhD student at Stanford, interviewed residents across age, race and income demographics who
were affected by wildfire smoke from the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California, and subsequent fires in 2019 in Fresno, Santa
Clara and Sacramento counties.



==========================================================================
They found that individuals responded to wildfire smoke events in three
main ways: interpreting information together, protecting vulnerable others
and questioning protective actions. Their responses were influenced not
only by the Air Quality Index (AQI) but also by what they were personally experiencing - - whether they smelled, saw or tasted smoke in the air.

Just as important were the social factors at play, the researchers found.

"Social norms and social support were really influencing how people chose
to act on their perceptions of threat," Santana said. "For example, a lot
of people talked about observing others wearing masks, and in some cases
that observation was enough for them to act by wearing a mask themselves." Their discussions revealed that the shared rules or standards of behavior within a social group -- social norms -- were a common pathway driving
behavior change, in addition to the act of assisting or comforting others within your social group -- social support.

"There were only a handful of people who described looking at the AQI and
then changing their behavior based on just that -- it was almost always
a conversation they were having with one another," Santana said. "It
was very much a social exercise of making sense of limited information
or information that was not at the right scale for their community."
The study provides a framework for better understanding wildfire
smoke responses by examining social processes while acknowledging that
cultural and political contexts, as well as factors like demographics,
health status and previous exposure to smoke and air pollution, may also influence individual behaviors.



==========================================================================
In the western U.S., climate change has contributed to the risk and
extent of wildfires, bringing smoke to regions like the Bay Area,
which has historically been less affected than the rest of the state. In
some cases, the researchers found that residents were unable to protect themselves because they couldn't access N95 masks or air purifiers or
properly seal their homes.

"This research is also important for epidemiologists trying to
understand how wildfire smoke affects health," said Gonzalez, who
is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California,
Berkeley. "This can help us to look at disparities in who's exposed to
smoke and whether that leads to poorer health for some populations."
As these events become more common, there could be an opportunity to find policy synergies that help prepare communities for future smoke events, according to the co-authors. For example, programs that are designed
to improve household comfort and increase energy efficiency could also
include measures to reduce smoke intrusion during wildfire smoke events, Wong-Parodi suggested.

Some of the interviews revealed that residents simply didn't know what
to do while experiencing a novel extreme event. But even that revealed
how processing uncertainty is a social exercise, not just a cognitive one.

"This piece shows that social norms may be an effective
lever for encouraging the pro-health change that we'd
like to see," Wong-Parodi said. "That is actually a really
promising sign for thinking about how to adapt and mitigate
our risk as we're facing increasing threats from climate change." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Stanford_University. Original
written by Danielle Torrent Tucker. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Francisca N. Santana, David J.X. Gonzalez, Gabrielle Wong-Parodi.

Psychological factors and social processes influencing wildfire
smoke protective behavior: Insights from a case study in Northern
California.

Climate Risk Management, 2021; 34: 100351 DOI:
10.1016/j.crm.2021.100351 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210830152903.htm

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