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Leveraging citizen science for research and environmental public health through the Smoke Sense initiative: Addressing the growing wildfire problem ?
Citation:
Rappold, A. Leveraging citizen science for research and environmental public health through the Smoke Sense initiative: Addressing the growing wildfire problem ? The Canadian Symposium on Wildfire Smoke Communication, Winnipeg, Monitoba, CANADA, April 25 - 26, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
Manitoba Health Disaster Management and Health Canada Air Quality Health Information Program invitation to you to participate in The Canadian Symposium on Wildfire Smoke Communication to present SMOKESENSE
Description:
There is not abstract associated with this talk but here is a general abstractSmoke Sense is a citizen science project which provides real-time information about the hazards of smoke exposures and the types of actions people can take to reduce exposures. The participation is done through the smart phone application which engages users in research to improve knowledge about how smoke exposures affect health and behavior. We investigated the role of personal health, perceptions of risk, and symptoms experienced during wildfire episodes in relation to adopting preventive health behaviors. Data from the pilot season (August 1, 2017 – January 7, 2019; n = 4,958) suggest there is a clear demand for personally relevant data during wildfire episodes motivated by the personal concern for health. However, while participants shared clear perceptions of the environmental hazard and health risks in general, they did not consistently recognize their own personal health risk. The engagement in health protective behavior was driven in response to symptoms rather than as preventive courses of action. We also observed clear differences in the adoption likelihood of various health protective behaviors attributed to barriers and perceived benefits of these actions. Based on pilot season data we summarize key insights which may improve current health risk communications in nudging individuals toward health protective behavior; there is a need to increase personal awareness of risk and compelling evidence that health protective behaviors are beneficial.