Doctoral Dissertation Research: Risk Perceptions as Potential Mediators of Environmental Toxicants Associated with Biomass Fuel Use

博士论文研究：作为与生物质燃料使用相关的环境毒物的潜在介质的风险认知

• 批准号: 1823912
• 负责人: Christopher McCarty
• 金额: $ 2.5万
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-15 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1823912&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Risk; Perceptions

Approximately 2.9 million people die prematurely from conditions arising from indoor air pollution annually. A significant proportion of cases are due to household reliance on biomass fuels and exposure to airborne toxicants in biomass smoke. Significant expenditures are made by the U.S. government to combat exposure. The cost-effectiveness and sustainability of potential spending on interventions to improve air quality depend on understanding the local context, however, including perceptions of strategies to mediate risk from environmental pollution and their interaction with community health patterns. Airborne toxicant exposure are already known to disproportionately impact individuals from disadvantaged socioeconomic status. This study, which trains a graduate student in methods of rigorous, empirical data collection and analysis, explores variation between cultural perceptions of risk and vulnerability to pollution exposure and biological outcomes. Further, this project will build capacity and scientific infrastructure through international scientific cooperation, and enhance public scientific understanding by broadly disseminating findings to organizations engaged in issues related to air pollution.David Dillon, under the supervision of Dr. Christopher McCarty of the University of Florida, will investigate whether perceptions of risk and vulnerability mediate human exposure to airborne toxicants from biomass fuels. The research takes place in Eastern Province, Zambia, an ideal setting for studying airborne toxicant risk; in sub-Saharan Africa, household air pollution (HAP) is fourth in the top ten list of risk factors for high burden of disease. Previous research on biomass fuel use demonstrates that both risk perception and cultural aspects of traditional cookstoves significantly influence individual exposure levels. This study employs a purposive matched sampling design that stratifies households by the primary source of household fuel while capturing variation in local demography. The co-PI tests hypotheses linking culturally constructed risk perception to specific and measurable biological outcomes using ethnographic data collected through semi-structured interviews and environmental health data on airborne toxicant exposure. Intellectually, findings from this research contribute to understanding how risk perception and local biology contribute to patterns of human-environment interaction and health inequalities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

每年约有290万人因室内空气污染而过早死亡。很大一部分病例是由于家庭对生物质燃料的依赖和接触生物质烟雾中的空气中的毒物。美国政府在打击风险暴露方面投入了大量资金。然而，用于改善空气质量的干预措施的成本效益和可持续性取决于对当地情况的了解，包括对调解环境污染风险的战略及其与社区健康模式的互动的看法。人们已经知道，接触空气中的毒物会对处于不利社会经济地位的个人产生不成比例的影响。这项研究对一名研究生进行了严格、实证的数据收集和分析方法的培训，探索了对污染暴露和生物后果的风险和脆弱性的文化认知之间的差异。此外，该项目将通过国际科学合作建设能力和科学基础设施，并通过向从事与空气污染有关的问题的组织广泛传播研究结果来增强公众的科学理解。大卫·狄龙将在佛罗里达大学克里斯托弗·麦卡蒂博士的监督下，调查对风险和脆弱性的看法是否会影响人类接触来自生物质燃料的空气传播毒物。这项研究发生在赞比亚东部省份，这是研究空气传播有毒物质风险的理想环境；在撒哈拉以南非洲，家庭空气污染(HAP)在高疾病负担的十大风险因素名单中排名第四。以前关于生物质燃料使用的研究表明，传统炉灶的风险认知和文化方面都对个人接触水平有很大影响。这项研究采用了有目的的匹配抽样设计，根据家庭燃料的主要来源对家庭进行分层，同时捕捉当地人口统计学的变化。联合PI使用通过半结构化访谈收集的人种学数据和关于空气中毒物暴露的环境健康数据来测试假设，将文化构建的风险感知与具体和可测量的生物结果联系起来。在智力上，这项研究的发现有助于理解风险感知和当地生物学如何有助于人类-环境相互作用和健康不平等的模式。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。