Weatherization can be an effective way to improve a home's energy efficiency and save homeowners money while reducing their carbon footprint. Weatherization usually involves adding or replacing insulation, installing more efficient windows, and sealing off unplanned airflow. Such measures often result in less outdoor air coming inside. Many consumer products and building materials found indoors, however, emit chemicals that can pollute the indoor air. In fact, indoor air pollution can be several times higher than outdoor air pollution; and poorly-planned weatherization that reduces ventilation can cause indoor air pollution to concentrate even more. The current research project seeks to find the best way to communicate the health risks of weatherization. The research involves the analysis of data gathered from a national survey designed to identify relationships between how people respond to risk messages and their future information seeking needs and behaviors. Other variables related to information seeking, such as attitude toward the behavior, social norms, self efficacy, self identity, perceived knowledge and past behavior, are also examined.
The findings of this study will benefit efforts to communicate the health risks of weatherization by demonstrating the relevant influence of many potential factors. If public education efforts improve as a result, then homeowners will be able to make more informed decisions about what kinds of energy improvements they wish to make on their homes.
This research project expanded the planned risk information seeking model (PRISM) in the context of poor indoor air quality and radon risk. The purpose of such a model is to gain a better understanding of the psychological and social elements that affect the public's interest in learning about science, health, the evironment, and risk. The dissertation enrichment grant funded the online survey of 681 American adults necessary to conduct this research. This project added two theoretically important model components to the PRISM: information-seeking self-identity and past risk information seeking. The addition of these components represents the primary intellectual contribution of this research. First, risk information seeking intention related strongly to information-seeking self-identity. Second, past seeking directly predicted seeking intention, which suggests that risk information seeking is somewhat habitual. However, it negatively predicted information need, suggesting that people seek information to satisfy an information need. Prior research did not establish clearly this dual nature of risk information seeking. In addition to augmenting the PRISM, this project examined different motivation orientations—from intrinsic to extrinsic—of each model component. This portion of the research found that people generally perceive risk information seeking to be personally relevant and important. Finally, this project explored how independent (versus interdependent) self-identity affects the attitude-intention and norm-intention relationships of the PRISM. The results of this project can benefit the public outreach of scientists, engineers, government agencies, consumer advocacy groups, and any other party invested in promoting public understanding of science, environment, and risk.
