Breathing on the job: investigating predictors of air quality protective actions and information seeking among outdoor workers.

BACKGROUND: Air quality issues, exacerbated by wildfire smoke and excessive ozone that is worsened by climate change, pose significant health risks to outdoor workers, who are often overlooked in regulatory protection and communication efforts. This study examined how outdoor worker demographics, risk perceptions, and efficacy beliefs predict air quality protective actions and information seeking. Additionally, it investigates the sources of information that this population relies on for understanding air quality. METHOD: A survey was conducted with 256 outdoor workers in Colorado, a state regularly affected by wildfire smoke and ozone. Measures included demographics, perceived risk, efficacy beliefs, air quality actions, and information seeking behavior. RESULTS: Both perceived risk and efficacy beliefs influenced health-protective actions during poor air quality events. Interestingly, efficacy beliefs were found to be a more reliable predictor of air quality information seeking than perceived risk. The top sources of air quality information among outdoor workers were local news media, The Weather Channel, mobile apps, state public health authorities, and the National Weather Service. CONCLUSIONS: These findings enhance our understanding of how perceived risk and efficacy beliefs promote health-protective behaviors among outdoor workers. They lay the groundwork for future research and initiatives to improve air quality communication and promote health-protective actions for this population group. Promoting the efficacy of health-protective actions and seeking information are important components of air quality communication.

The Social Ecology of Health Beliefs and Misinformation Framework: Examining the impact of misinformation on vaccine uptake through individual and sociological factors.

BACKGROUND: Misinformation presents a critical concern for academic and public health discourse, particularly around vaccine response. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine hesitancy was responsible for decreased immunization uptake for vaccine-preventable diseases. Misinformation connected to the novel COVID-19 vaccine has further fueled vaccine hesitancy in Colorado and the United States. Our study brings together three different perspectives - physicians, public health professionals, and parents - to understand the impact of misinformation on vaccine uptake in Colorado. Our study proposes a framework for combining the Health Belief Model with the Socio-Ecological model to account for societal factors in healthcare decision making. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews and focus groups with public health professionals, physicians, and parents (n = 31) were conducted in late spring and summer 2022. Data were coded inductively using thematic analysis. Identified themes were deductively categorized according to the Socio-Ecological Model and Health Belief Model. RESULTS: Using a theoretical framework that combined the Health Belief Model and the Socio-Ecological Model, we identified seven factors that influenced vaccine hesitancy in Colorado. Intrapersonal factors included routine vaccine hesitancy connected to perceptions of severity and susceptibility, efficacy, and benefits and barriers to vaccine uptake; interpersonal factors included social networks; institutional factors included mass mediated platforms, portrayals of uncertainty, distrust in institutional sources of information, and political influences in vaccine decision making; and structural factors included economic barriers behind vaccine hesitancy. CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides a unique, triangulated, post-positivist perspective on the role of misinformation in vaccine hesitancy in Colorado. The findings provide evidence that misinformation is an important barrier to vaccination uptake and can permeate multiple socio-ecological determinants/characteristics to influence vaccination behaviors including intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional, and structural levels. We introduce the Social Ecology of Health Beliefs and Misinformation Framework to account for how misinformation may interrupt vaccine uptake.

Optimizing inpatient bed management in a rural community-based hospital: a quality improvement initiative.

BACKGROUND: Appropriate use of available inpatient beds is an ongoing challenge for US hospitals. Historical capacity goals of 80% to 85% may no longer serve the intended purpose of maximizing the resources of space, staff, and equipment. Numerous variables affect the input, throughput, and output of a hospital. Some of these variables include patient demand, regulatory requirements, coordination of patient flow between various systems, coordination of processes such as bed management and patient transfers, and the diversity of departments (both inpatient and outpatient) in an organization. METHODS: Mayo Clinic Health System in the Southwest Minnesota region of the US, a community-based hospital system primarily serving patients in rural southwestern Minnesota and part of Iowa, consists of 2 postacute care and 3 critical access hospitals. Our inpatient bed usage rates had exceeded 85%, and patient transfers from the region to other hospitals in the state (including Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota) had increased. To address these quality gaps, we used a blend of Agile project management methodology, rapid Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, and a proactive approach to patient placement in the medical-surgical units as a quality improvement initiative. RESULTS: During 2 trial periods of the initiative, the main hub hospital (Mayo Clinic Health System hospital in Mankato) and other hospitals in the region increased inpatient bed usage while reducing total out-of-region transfers. CONCLUSION: Our novel approach to proactively managing bed capacity in the hospital allowed the region's only tertiary medical center to increase capacity for more complex and acute cases by optimizing the use of historically underused partner hospital beds.

Scientists' deficit perception of the public impedes their behavioral intentions to correct misinformation.

This paper investigates the relationship between scientists' communication experience and attitudes towards misinformation and their intention to correct misinformation. Specifically, the study focuses on two correction strategies: source-based correction and relational approaches. Source-based approaches combatting misinformation prioritize sharing accurate information from trustworthy sources to encourage audiences to trust reliable information over false information. On the other hand, relational approaches give priority to developing relationships or promoting dialogue as a means of addressing misinformation. In this study, we surveyed 416 scientists from U.S. land-grant universities using a self-report questionnaire. We find that scientists' engagement in science communication activities is positively related to their intention to correct misinformation using both strategies. Moreover, the scientists' attitude towards misinformation mediates the relationship between engagement in communication activities and intention to correct misinformation. The study also finds that the deficit model perception-that is, the assumption that scientists only need to transmit scientific knowledge to an ignorant public in order to increase understanding and support for science-moderates the indirect effect of engagement in science communication activities on behavioral intention to correct misinformation using relational strategies through attitude towards misinformation. Thus, the deficit model perception is a barrier to engaging in relational strategies to correct misinformation. We suggest that addressing the deficit model perception and providing science communication training that promotes inclusive worldviews and relational approaches would increase scientists' behavioral intentions to address misinformation. The study concludes that scientists should recognize their dual positionality as scientists and members of their community and engage in respectful conversations with community members about science.

Expressions of Resilience: Social Media Responses to a Flooding Event.

Concerns over the resilience of individuals within communities impacted by extreme weather events have heightened in recent years due to the increasing frequency and intensity of these events. Individuals' participation in communicative activities is an integral part of how they prepare for and respond to natural disasters. This study focuses on how individuals express resilience in social media posts from Twitter before, during, and after a regional flooding event in Colorado in 2013 (N = 210,303). Findings show that both negative and positive emotional responses spike at the start of the event, with positive emotions remaining high in the weeks following the event. Uses of language related to social connections, as well as references to home and work, increased during and after the event. Tweets used pronouns focused on the self during the event but shifted to pronouns focused on the collective after the event. This study points the importance of language for understanding the lasting impact extreme weather events can have on individuals, as well as when and how to reach individuals with information about recovery. The increased focus on collective language after the event provides an opportunity for calls to action in collecting and distributing shared resources.

Scientists as comedians: The effects of humor on perceptions of scientists and scientific messages.

Humor has been recommended for scientists looking to conduct communication activities despite relatively little empirical evidence demonstrating its effectiveness. Here, we examine the social environment of a joke through a two-condition experimental design that manipulates the presence or absence of audience laughter. Specifically, we examine how humor experienced from viewing a video clip of a science comedian embedded in an online survey can have downstream effects on whether people view comedy as a valid source of scientific information. We found that respondents who perceived more humor in the video clip (i.e. those in the condition with audience laughter) had more positive views about comedy as a valid source of scientific information. Interestingly, this relationship was mediated by perceived expertise, not likability, of the scientist engaging in comedy.

Predictors of trust in the general science and climate science research of US federal agencies.

In this article, we focus on a key strategic objective of scientific organizations: maintaining the trust of the public. Using data from a nationally representative survey of American adults ( n = 1510), we assess the extent to which demographic factors and political ideology are associated with citizens' trust in general science and climate science research conducted by US federal agencies. Finally, we test whether priming individuals to first consider agencies' general science research influences trust in their climate science research, and vice versa. We found that federal agencies' general science research is more trusted than their climate science research-although a large minority of respondents did not have an opinion-and that political ideology has a strong influence on public trust in federal scientific research. We also found that priming participants to consider general scientific research does not increase trust in climate scientific research. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Value predispositions as perceptual filters: Comparing of public attitudes toward nanotechnology in the United States and Singapore.

This study compares public attitudes toward nanotechnology in the United States and Singapore, using large-scale survey data in both countries. Results indicate that Singaporeans tend to be more knowledgeable about and familiar with nanotechnology than the U.S. public. Singaporeans tend to perceive greater benefits and fewer potential risks of nanotechnology, and to indicate greater support for government funding for nanotechnology than the U.S. public. Between the two countries, perceived familiarity with nanotechnology and the benefits and risks of the emerging technology tend to be interpreted differently through the lens of value predispositions (religiosity and deference to scientific authority) and therefore they indirectly affect public support. Specifically, the U.S. public tends to use religiosity to interpret benefits and Singaporeans are inclined to use religiosity to think about risks. Deference to scientific authority also moderates the impact of perceived familiarity with nanotechnology on funding support for the technology among the U.S. public.

Information beyond the forum: Motivations, strategies, and impacts of citizen participants seeking information during a consensus conference.

During traditional consensus conferences, organizers control the formal information available to participants-by compiling structured background materials and recruiting expert panelists. Less formally, however, participants are encouraged to bring their own experiences into the deliberations, and in doing so, they often seek outside information. We explore this heretofore understudied phenomenon of information seeking during a deliberative event: the U.S. National Citizens' Technology Forum (2008), which addressed the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science on the potential development of human-enhancement technologies. Through interviews with participants and observation of in-person and online deliberations, we identify outside information-seeking strategies and motivations. Our study demonstrates that conceptualizing models of deliberation as standalone settings of communication exchange ignores the reality of the complex information environment from which deliberative participants draw when making sense of technical issues. Future citizen deliberations must incorporate outside information seeking in the design of the exercises.

News coverage of controversial emerging technologies. Evidence for the issue attention cycle in print and online media.

This study analyzes the issue attention cycle for print and online media coverage of a scientific publication examining the deaths of Chinese factory workers due to lung damage from chronic exposure to nanoparticles. The results of the nanoparticle study, published in 2009, embody news values that would make the study a prime candidate for press coverage, namely, novelty, negativity, controversy, and potential widespread impact. Nevertheless, mentions of the event in traditional English-language print media were nearly nonexistent. Online media, on the other hand, gave the story greater coverage. This case study exemplifies why online media may not be bound to the same issue attention cycle that print media are for controversial scientific events.

The changing information environment for nanotechnology: online audiences and content.

The shift toward online communication in all realms, from print newspapers to broadcast television, has implications for how the general public consumes information about nanotechnology. The goal of this study is threefold: to investigate who is using online sources for information and news about science and nanotechnology, to examine what the general public is searching for online with regards to nanotechnology, and to analyze what they find in online content of nanotechnology. Using survey data, we find those who report the Internet as their primary source of science and technology news are diverse in age, more knowledgeable about science and nanotechnology, highly educated, male, and more diverse racially than users of other media. In a comparison of demographic data on actual visits by online users to general news and science Web sites, science sites attracted more male, non-white users from the Western region of the United States than news sites did. News sites, on the other hand, attracted those with a slightly higher level of education. Our analysis of published estimates of keyword searches on nanotechnology reveals people are turning to the Internet to search for keyword searches related to the future, health, and applications of nanotechnology. A content analysis of online content reveals health content dominates overall. Comparisons of content in different types of sites-blogs, government, and general sites-are conducted. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11051-010-9860-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.