| Summary: | 碩士 === 中國醫藥大學 === 環境醫學研究所碩士班 === 97 === The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between risk perception and avoidance behavior among residents living near an urban municipal waste incinerator on the west side of Taichung. A cross-sectional study was conducted to include 514 residents in the exposure group livng near the incinerator and 264 people living on the east side of the city as the control group. Participants in both groups were similar in the distribution of age and history of living in the study areas. All participants were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. A convenient sample of 11 “opinion leaders” was also selected for the in-depth interviews for comparison with the findings from general residents.
Results showed that the participants with a higher risk perception of exposing to the pollutants from the incinerator were more likely females, had higher education and income, or living near the incinerator. Those residents who had ever visited or used the compensation facility, or lived near the incinerator for more than 10 years were less likely believe that the environ-mental authorities were responsible for the incinerator operation.
As of the avoidance behavior, the results of logistic regression analysis adjusting for covariates showed that the residents in exposure group had 2.49 times greater desire to move in one year than the controls. The exposure group was 1.24 times more likely than controls to move in the near future. In regarding to the health status, the exposure group was 2.42 times geater than the control group to have chronic diseases. In addition, the parental perceived risk of hyperactive children was 1.51 times higher in the exposure group than in the control group. However, a cross-sectional study cannot determine a causal relationship between the incionator operation and the risk of adverse health effect.
This survey also found that “opinion leaders” had a higher risk percep-tion than the general residents. The emission of dioxin was the major concern among the leaders. Although they were more educated, the risk perception of opinion leaders was not significantly different from that of the residents. Because of higher education level, social status, knowledge level and experience, many opinion leaders expressed that they accepted (45%) the current situation, but were relactant to comment and were not pleasant (41.5%) for being involved in the construction process of the incinerator. They expected to move the incinerator away by the end of operation life of the plant. However, this would not decrease their trust to the authority to move the incinatotion facility.
It is our suggestion that the environmental authority should make the operational information of the incinator open to the public and monitor residents’ risk perception and health condition on a regular base.
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