Factor analytic investigation of Canadians' population health risk perceptions: the role of locus of control over health risks

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer E.C. Lee ◽  
Louise Lemyre ◽  
Louise Legault ◽  
Michelle C. Turner ◽  
Daniel Krewski
2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Lemyre ◽  
Jennifer E. C. Lee ◽  
Pierre Mercier ◽  
Louise Bouchard ◽  
Daniel Krewski

Author(s):  
Liliana Cori ◽  
Fabrizio Bianchi ◽  
Ennio Cadum ◽  
Carmen Anthonj

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is shaking the foundations of public health governance all over the world. Researchers are challenged by informing and supporting authorities on acquired knowledge and practical implications. This commentary applies established theories of risk perception research to COVID-19 and reflects on the role of risk perceptions in these unprecedented times. Moreover, it calls for utilizing the knowledge on risk perception to improve health risk communication, build trust and contribute to a collaborating governance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belinda Lunnay ◽  
Kristen Foley ◽  
Samantha B. Meyer ◽  
Megan Warin ◽  
Carlene Wilson ◽  
...  

Australian women's alcohol consumption has increased in frequency during COVID-19. Research suggests this is to cope with stress resulting from the pandemic and COVID-19 countermeasures that require social distancing. This is a critical public health concern because increased alcohol consumption, even for a short period, increases the myriad longer-term health risks associated with cumulative exposure to alcohol. This paper provides unique qualitative evidence of how health risk perceptions are re-focused toward the shorter-term during the pandemic, through analysis of interviews with 40 middle-aged Australian women (aged 45–64) representing a range of self-perceived drinking status' (“occasional”/“light”/“moderate”/“heavy”) before and then during the pandemic (n = 80 interviews). Our analysis captures women's risk horizons drifting away from the uncertain longer-term during COVID-19, toward the immediate need to “get through” the pandemic. We show how COVID-19 has increased the perceived value of consuming alcohol among women, particularly when weighed up against the social and emotional “costs” of reducing consumption. Our findings have implications for the delivery of alcohol-related health risk messages designed for middle-aged women both during, and into the recovery phases of the pandemic, who already consume more alcohol and experience more alcohol-related health risk than women in other age groups.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0252290
Author(s):  
Tilman Leo Hohenberger ◽  
Wenwei Che ◽  
Jimmy C. H. Fung ◽  
Alexis K. H. Lau

City air quality monitoring (AQM) network are typically sparsely distributed due to high operation costs. It is of the question of how well it can reflect public health risks to air pollution given the diversity and heterogeneity in pollution, and spatial variations in population density. Combing high-resolution air quality model, spatial population distribution and health risk factors, we proposed a population-health based metric for AQM representativeness. This metric was demonstrated in Hong Kong using hourly modelling data of PM10, PM2.5, NO2 and O3 in 2019 with grid cells of 45m * 48m. Individual and total hospital admission risks (%AR) of these pollutants were calculated for each cell, and compared with those calculated at 16 monitoring sites using the similarity frequency (SF) method. AQM Representativeness was evaluated by SF and a population-health based network representation index (PHNI), which is population-weighted SF over the study-domain. The representativeness varies substantially among sites as well as between population- and area-based evaluation methods, reflecting heterogeneity in pollution and population. The current AQM network reflects population health risks well for PM10 (PHNI = 0.87) and PM2.5 (PHNI = 0.82), but is less able to represent risks for NO2 (PHNI = 0.59) and O3 (PHNI = 0.78). Strong seasonal variability in PHNI was found for PM, increasing by >11% during autumn and winter compared to summer due to regional transport. NO2 is better represented in urban than rural, reflecting the heterogeneity of urban traffic pollution. Combined health risk (%ARtotal) is well represented by the current AQM network (PHNI = 1), which is more homogenous due to the dominance and anti-correlation of NO2 and O3 related %AR. The proposed PHNI metric is useful to compare the health risk representativeness of AQM for individual and multiple pollutants and can be used to compare the effectiveness of AQM across cities.


2007 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 816-822 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youngho Kim

The current study identified the differences in health-risk perceptions between a random sample of 701 Australian and 874 Korean adolescents in Grades 8 to 12 who were asked to participate in a survey designed to assess their perceptions of health risk. To measure the health risks, an English version of the Self-Other Risk Judgments Profile was translated into Korean, and then the English and Korean versions were separately given the two groups. Analysis identified significant mean differences between the two groups in ratings both of risks they had and ratings of risks for others. Korean adolescents perceived their likelihood of a variety of self-health risks as substantially lower than the Australian group. Also, they rated the chances of most health risks happening to them as significantly lower than those of others in the same age compared with Australian peers.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
lei li ◽  
ziniu li ◽  
guodong xv ◽  
cuihua wang ◽  
mei jiang

Abstract The paper reported the determination on PAHs concentrations in bivalves (Crassostrea gigas and Mytilus coruscus) from the Zhejiang coastal of China, and evaluate their composition, and assess their human health risk. The content of ΣPAHs in the two bivalves ranged from 48.30 to 61.08 ng/g. The main component of PAHs was Phenanthrene(11.08–15.79 ng/g). Comparing with HMW-PAHs, PAHs dominated by LMW-PAHs have higher absorption rates and lower purification rates. In the local coastal environment, the pyrolytic sources were an important role of the PAH pollution. At present, it assessed the health risks on consumption the two bivalves species,there was no threat to human health by eating shellfish accumulated PAH intakes, but there were some carcinogenic risks for heavier consumption of this two bivalves. The results will provide a reference value for the shellfish living marine environment in the region.


Author(s):  
Roba Argaw Tessema ◽  
Károly Nagy ◽  
Balázs Ádám

Pesticides play a very important role for ensuring food security and economic growth but their use can cause harmful effects to human health and to the environment. The study aimed to investigate the level of knowledge, health risk perceptions, and experiences on the practice of pesticide use and management among extension officers in Ethiopia and plant doctors in Hungary. A questionnaire survey among 326 officers was conducted in the two study areas and data were analyzed by ordinal logistic regression. According to the findings, Hungarian officers had much better knowledge of pesticide products (92%), and less frequently experienced pesticide poisoning among applicators (7%) than the Ethiopians (66% and 41%, respectively). Hungarian officers perceived less health risk of pesticide use (AOR = 0.46, 95%, Cl: 0.27–0.80), were ten times more likely to deem the pesticide management system effective (AOR = 10.23, 95%, Cl: 5.68–18.46) and were nine times more likely to report that applicators used personal protective equipment (AOR = 8.95, 95%, Cl: 4.94–16.28). A significant proportion of officers from both countries reported inappropriate methods of pesticide residue disposal. These observations point out that the situation of pesticide use and knowledge and management of pesticide products is definitely better in Hungary; nevertheless, the issue continues to need more attention in both settings.


2018 ◽  
Vol 97 (12) ◽  
pp. 1166-1170
Author(s):  
Yuliya A. Novikova ◽  
O. L. Markova ◽  
K. B. Fridman

Introduction. The list of ecological problems has recently enlarged by another one: environment pollution, and first of all, of surface water basins, by so-called «emerging contaminants». Based on the findings of research centers in RF, European countries and in the USA an independent class of human-environment pollutants of anthropogenic origin named «Pharmpollutants», was identified. Discussion. It can be related to the growing scale of world pharmaceutical production output (average annual growth about 4.6 %), to the development of up-to-date technologies in animal and poultry breeding, as well as to increased use of pharmaceuticals among the population. Systematization and analysis of data on the effect of unsanctioned and uncontrolled medical product disposal on quality of surface sources of drinking water supply, development of recommendations for health risk minimization among population exposed to potential intake of pharmaceutical traces contained in surface water basins and drinking water, based on available findings, and defining priority areas for the development of statutory-regulatory and procedural documents, - were the objectives of our study. Development of the recommendations can improve regulatory and procedural base and will contribute to the development of specific measures to prevent the transfer of medicinal products into the environment. Conclusion. National and foreign research findings on the topic of interest are reviewed, and potential routes of pharmaceuticals transfer into environmental objects are described. The scope of problems is outlined, ways of coping with problems of water reservoir pollution by pharmpollutants and health risk minimization for population exposed to pharmaceuticals present in drinking water, are suggested; recommendations for minimization of population health risks caused by environmental pharmaceuticals have been prepared.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Joanne Dono ◽  
Kerry Ettridge ◽  
Melanie Wakefield ◽  
Simone Pettigrew ◽  
John Coveney ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective: There are numerous health effects associated with excess sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption. Interventions aimed at reducing population-level consumption require understanding of the relevant barriers and facilitators. This study aimed to identify the variables with the strongest relationship with intentions to reduce SSB consumption from a suite of variables derived from the literature. Design: Random digit dialling of landline and mobile phones was used to survey adults using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews. The outcome variable was ‘likelihood of reducing SSB consumption in next 6 months’ and predictor variables were: demographics, SSB attitudes and behaviour, health risk perceptions and social/environmental exposure. Setting: Australia Participants: A subsample of 1630 regular SSB consumers from a nationally representative sample of 3430 Australian adults (38% female, 51% aged 18-45 years, 56% overweight or obese). Results: Respondents indicated that they were ‘not at all’ (30.1%), ‘somewhat’ (43.9%) and ‘very’ likely (25.3%) to reduce SSB consumption. Multi-variate nominal logistic regressions showed that perceiving future health to be ‘very much’ at risk was the strongest predictor of intention to reduce SSB consumption (Odds Ratio=8.1 [1.8-37.0], p<0.01). Other significant predictors (p<0.01) included self-perceptions about too much consumption, habitual consumption, difficulty reducing consumption, and likelihood of benefiting from reduced consumption. Conclusions: Health risk perceptions had the strongest relationship with intentions to reduce consumption. Age and consumption perceptions were also predictors in the multivariate models whereas social/environmental exposure variables were not. Interventions may seek to incorporate strategies to de-normalise consumption practices and increase knowledge about perceived susceptibility to health risks.


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