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In this paper, we examine discourse in public deliberations in pre-development locales in the UK and US about advantages and disadvantages of future shale development ('fracking'). We aimed to understand how people anticipate potential health effects, broadly construed, of environmental toxicity and disturbance in the context of planned, but not yet implemented, energy development. In day-long deliberations with small, diverse groups in two cities in each country (London, Cardiff in the UK; Los Angeles, Santa Barbara in the US), participants discussed impacts on health and well-being using three main rubrics: 'It's money or health', 'Why take chances?' and 'Beyond the tipping point'. Throughout, participants framed health as an intrinsically moral issue, with collective responsibility as a dominant normative frame. We identify the concept of compound risk to underscore effects of multiple risks and hazards on people's sensibilities about anticipated future health and environmental harm. The findings demonstrate how and why diverse publics in pre-impact sites in both countries saw shale extraction as high stakes development that poses significant, often unacceptable, risks to human and environmental health and well-being. Risks extended beyond toxicity to broad threats to health, including, for some, the end of life as we know it on the planet. Overall, participants' discussions of health were more connected to social categories and their underlying moral principles than to technological details. This work contributes evidence of blurred boundaries between environment and health as well as the importance people place on social risks in the context of proposed energy system change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a partisan issue rather than an independent public health issue in the US. This study examined the behavioural consequences of motivated reasoning and framing by investigating the impacts of COVID-19 news exposure and news frames, as apparent through a Latent Dirichlet topic modelling analysis of local news coverage, on state-level preventive behaviours as understood through a nationally representative survey. Findings suggested that the media effects on various preventive behaviours differed. The overall exposure rate to all COVID-19 news articles increased mask-wearing but did not significantly impact other preventive behaviours. Four news frames significantly increased avoiding contact or avoiding public or crowded places. However, news articles discussing anxiety and stay at home order triggered resistance and countereffects and led to risky behaviours. 'Solid Republican' state residents were less likely to avoid contact, avoid public or crowded places, and wear masks. However, partisan leanings did not interfere with the impact of differing local COVID-19 news frames on reported preventive behaviours. Plus, statements regarding pre-existing trust in Trump did not correlate with reported preventive behaviour. Attention to effect sizes revealed that news exposure and news frames could have a bigger impact on health behaviours than motivated reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understandings of risk permeate end-of-life (EOL) care contexts. In addition to the risk of bodily death, patients, family and healthcare providers face spiritual and communication risks during EOL care. The Western biomedical healthcare model is an objectivist, curative framework focusing on fixing the body; this cultural notion limits communication regarding physical illness. Existing work argues that Americans' reticence to discuss EOL can be considered a public health issue, due to high financial and relational costs, lack of education about treatment options, and avoidance of EOL discussions until decisions must be made during health crises. The current study applied risk orders theory in analysing chaplains' experiences of EOL care in the US, where medical practice is dominated by biomedical health models. Risk orders theory is used to examine risk discourses from a social constructionist perspective in response to dominant objectivist approaches to risk. The current study expands conceptions of third-order risks through exploration of the chaplaincy profession. Analysis of chaplain qualitative interviews and focus groups, totalling 48 participants across the US, suggest chaplains possess the potential to reframe cultural discourses about death and reinvigorate cultural imagination surrounding EOL care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with different cultural worldviews conceptualise risks in distinct ways, yet this work has not extended to personal illness risk perception. The purpose of this study was to 1) examine the relationships between two types of cultural worldviews (Hierarchy-Egalitarian; Individualism-Communitarianism) and perceived risk (perceived severity and susceptibility) for diabetes and colon cancer, 2) test whether health literacy modifies the above relationships, and 3) investigate whether trust in government health information functions as a putative mediator of the relations between cultural worldviews and disease perceived risk. We recruited (N = 600) participants from a nationally-representative Internet survey panel. Results were weighted so the findings are representative of the general United States population. People with a more hierarchical worldview expressed lower perceived susceptibility to developing both diabetes and colon cancer, and perceived these diseases to be less severe, relative to those with a less hierarchical (more egalitarian) worldview. There was no significant association between individualistic worldview and perceived risk. Health literacy modified the relationships between hierarchical worldview and perceived risk; the associations between hierarchical worldview and lower perceived severity were stronger for those with limited health literacy. We did not observe indirect effects of cultural worldviews on perceived risk through trust in health information from government sources. It may be useful to identify specifically tailored risk communication strategies for people with hierarchical and individualistic worldviews, especially those with limited health literacy, that emphasise their important cultural values. Further research examining cultural components of illness risk perceptions may enhance our understanding of risk-protective behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

US quarantine announcements do not include information that there is a moderate likelihood that Ebola-exposed people might exhibit symptoms, signalling infectiousness, beyond 21 days. As a result it is possible that if and when there is media coverage in the US of a delayed-symptom case, it might create citizen distrust in public health authorities and information and cause citizens to overestimate the risk of Ebola infection. In this article we report a research study which examined whether openness about post-21-day symptoms would attenuate negative reactions. We ran two experiments with online opportunity (Amazon mTurk) samples of Americans in late October-early November 2014, between the two deaths from Ebola in the US. In these experiments we assessed the reactions of respondents who saw quantitative estimates of post-21-day-symptom likelihood (n = 1413), or were informed about post-21-day symptoms with a rationale for the 21-day period after all saw a mock news story about a US case of 30th-day symptoms (n = 425). We found in both experiments that perceived risk increased and trust declined when people learned of post-21-day symptoms, and disbelief increased that 21 days without symptoms means no Ebola infection. In Study 2, informed persons and controls changed perceived risk and trust relative to baseline; test-group participants distrusted local medical personnel less and wanted shorter quarantines compared to controls who did not receive the information. Our findings suggest that informing Americans about the small likelihood of post-21-days Ebola symptoms would not increase perceived risk and distrust, and might diminish negative reactions to the media reporting a case who developed symptoms of Ebola after 21 days. Thus, public health officials wanting appropriate public responses to potential or actual epidemics may benefit from early communication of unpleasant infectious-disease facts before events reveal them, and signal officials’ lack of preparedness for public reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]