Utilizing a randomized phone survey of coastal Louisiana residents, this study will focus on identifying which influences from a residents exposure, socio-economic vulnerability and adaptive capacity are the best indicators of an individuals resilience. Two binary logistic regression models were developed to test the associations of resident response to: 1) acute hazards via household emergency plan adoption and 2) chronic hazards represented by behavior modification in response to daily air quality reporting where adoption of these two risk-reducing behaviors are viewed as increased individual resilience. Bivariate correlation analysis found that a north south grouping of coastal Louisiana was significantly correlated with 26 of the survey predictor variables. The two binary logistic regression model results include: as an individuals current level of environmental hazard knowledge increases by 1-increment they are 53% more likely to engage in the risk-reducing behavior, adoption of an emergency plan and almost 5 in 10 residents of the southern region reported altering their behavior on poor air quality days. This self-reported mitigation effort is associated with an increase in their personal level of concern for overall environmental pollution. Overall the results indicate when residents are provided with relevant environmental hazard information and, more importantly, when residents understand and have confidence in the hazard information, they are more likely to take anticipatory and pre-emptive measures to reduce their risk. While this study found less optimal risk-reducing adoption rates, the finding suggests immediate opportunities for government agencies and public-interest organizations to increase public education efforts to target audiences who are willing and receptive to increased environmental hazard information. Future research improvements should include increased survey questions, new survey administering methods, broadening the geographical scope of the research project, and, thus, increasing the sampling population size.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-08272013-162913 |
| Date | 12 September 2013 |
| Creators | Carraway, Tiia Maria |
| Contributors | Reams, Margaret, Lam, Nina, Liu, Kam-Biu |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-08272013-162913/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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