Communicating Air Pollution Conditions: Results from a Philadelphia Study. B. B. Johnson, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Trenton, NJ
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently promulgated a national regulation revising the Pollutant Standard Index (PSI), used for many years to communicate to public audiences air pollution conditions, predictively (today, tomorrow) or retrospectively (yesterday, today). Although the PSI can be used to communicate the "worst" air quality produced by any one of several pollutants, in general the PSI is used to communicate about ozone conditions. Over 1,000 candidates to serve on Philadelphia juries volunteered to fill out one version of a questionnaire on air pollution concerns and beliefs. The study included experimental manipulation of the format and content of hypothetical PSI data (e.g., whether the "old" or proposed version of the PSI was used; whether supplementary information on health effects was or was not added; the level of air quality presented as current), to see whether air pollution concerns, beliefs, and behavioral intentions vary depending on the PSI approach used. This paper will present the results of the survey, and discuss their implications in light of the PSI regulation finally adopted.
Data collection for this study was funded by a small grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, via the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, to Rutgers University.
Data collection funded by small U.S. EPA grant to Rutgers University, via NESCAUM.
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