IBSS-Ex: Integrating Social Science and Systems Methodologies for Sustainability: Promoting Appropriate Waste-Disposal Practices in Low-Income Neighborhoods

这个跨学科的研究项目将探索一种新方法的潜力，以减少垃圾堆积，促进低收入城市社区的回收利用。该项目将展示如何整合不同的社会科学方法，为城市可持续发展管理提供有用的见解和答案。研究人员将汇集行为科学、决策科学和管理科学的观点和方法；计量经济学和行为经济学；以及健康的社会决定因素。该项目将对影响废物产生和处置做法的因素提供新的见解，并将评估减少垃圾、增加回收和改善城市环境特征的不同方法的潜力。该项目将在巴尔的摩市的低收入社区开展，但它将为其他不同地区提供新的理论见解，并将为旨在促进城市社区质量和可持续性的项目和政策的制定提供信息。调查人员将与社区居民、社区协会、环保组织和城市机构合作，调查原因，并对城市垃圾堆积问题的解决方案进行试点测试和评估。该项目将为研究生提供宝贵的教育和培训机会，它将涉及许多高中的学生，这些高中有以健康为重点的科学课程，而美国有大量学生在科学和工程方面的代表性不足。该项目将建立在2014年初进行的一项试点研究的基础上，该研究确定了导致社区固体废物积累的四个关键因素：(1)出租物业租户流失率高；(2)房东不向租客提供垃圾桶、垃圾收集程序信息或后巷通道；(3)现行法律条件下卫生法规执行人员面临的困难；(4)鼓励堆积垃圾的毒贩和吸毒者，因为这有助于向执法官员隐瞒他们的活动。研究人员将整合来自不同社会科学领域的经验和理论建模方法，以评估影响废物产生和处置实践的社会和物理因素，并为评估影响废物产生和处置的因素创建测量工具。他们将制定和试验旨在改善家庭和社区废物管理的一揽子干预措施，并将采用系统分析方法来评价各项战略。四种类型的实证分析将告知社会物理决策科学模型的参数化。首先将分析历史数据，以了解废物政策与废物和垃圾数量之间的广泛关系。这些数据将提供有用的基线和对政策相关性的见解，但不会提供影响与选择之间关系模型所需的细粒度解决方案。第二和第三类将是实验室实验和实地研究，以便在更受控制的条件下产生个人和家庭一级的数据，以确定更具有因果性质的关系。第四项将是调查问卷研究，探讨人们对适当和不适当的处理方法的态度，这将有助于确定在特定情况下公众最积极地接受哪些干预措施，重点放在可以对干预措施的有效性产生重大影响的设计特征上。本项目由美国国家科学基金会跨学科行为与社会科学研究（IBSS）竞赛资助。

This interdisciplinary research project will explore the potential for a new approach to reduce trash accumulation and promote recycling in low-income urban neighborhoods. The project will demonstrate how different social science methods can be integrated to provide insights and answers useful in urban sustainability management. The investigators will bring together perspectives and approaches from behavioral science, decision and management sciences; econometrics and behavioral economics; and the social determinants of health. The project will provide new insights regarding the factors that influence waste-creation and -disposal practices, and it will assess the potential for different kinds of approaches to reduce litter, increase recycling, and improve urban environmental characteristics. The project will be conducted in low-income neighborhoods in the city of Baltimore, but it will provide new theoretical insights in a diverse range of other locales, and it will inform the development of programs and policies designed to promote urban neighborhood quality and sustainability. The investigators will work in collaboration with neighborhood residents, community associations, environmental organizations and city agencies to investigate the causes and to pilot test and evaluate solutions to the problem of urban trash accumulation. The project will provide valuable education and training opportunities for graduate students, and it will involve students from a number of high schools that have science programs with a health focus and with large numbers of students underrepresented in science and engineering in the U.S.This project will build on a pilot study conducted in early 2014 that identified four key factors contributing to the accumulation of solid waste in neighborhoods: (1) high turnover of tenants in rental properties; (2) landlords who do not provide trash containers, information about trash collection procedures, or access to the back alley to tenants; (3) difficulties faced by sanitation code enforcement officials given current laws; and (4) drug dealers and users who encourage trash accumulation because it helps conceal their activities from law enforcement officials. The investigators will integrate empirical and theoretical modeling methods from different social science fields to assess social and physical factors influencing waste creation and disposal practices and create measurement tools for evaluation of factors affecting waste creation and disposal. They will develop and test intervention packages designed to improve household and community waste management, and they will employ a systems-analysis approach for the evaluation of strategies. Four types of empirical analyses will inform the parameterization of the socio-physical decision sciences model. The first will be analyses of historical data for broad relationships between waste policies and the amounts of waste and litter. These data will provide a useful baseline and insights on correlations with policies but will not provide the fine-grained resolution needed for models of relationships between influences and choices. The second and third types will be laboratory experiments and field studies to generate individual and household-level data under more controlled conditions to identify relationships that are more causal in nature. The fourth will be questionnaire studies addressing attitudes towards proper and improper disposal methods, which will help identify which interventions will be received most positively by the public under given circumstances, with an emphasis placed on design features that can make a large difference in intervention effectiveness. This project is supported through the NSF Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (IBSS) competition.