Working Papers

R&R at Ecological Economics
Abstract: Many decisions at the human-wildlife-environmental health nexus are made under conditions of both risk (i.e., potential for negative outcomes) and uncertainty (due to imperfect, evolving scientific knowledge). In this study, we focused on the example of the problem of tick-borne disease management in North America. Tick-borne disease poses a high human health risk, but the decision of whether or how to attempt to control ticks is high-uncertainty due to lack of data and/or expert consensus about the most effective control tactics. We examined willingness to pay (WTP) for tick control programs on public woodland via a property tax in the northeastern United States, a region that is strongly impacted by Lyme disease. We used a discrete choice experiment with 581 respondents to 1) empirically estimate residents’ WTP for attributes of tick control strategies on public land (deer culling, insecticide application, invasive plant removal, and scientific certainty regarding efficacy); 2) examine mediators of preference using constructs from the Health Belief Model (perceived severity of disease, perceived susceptibility to disease, perceived benefits of and barriers to intervention); and 3) explore other moderators of preference heterogeneity (environmental values, risk aversion, ambiguity aversion, Lyme disease knowledge, Lyme disease experience, and demographic factors). We found distinct preferences for attributes of tick control programs, particularly high WTP for programs incorporating invasive plant management and insecticide application, and strong opposition to programs with uncertain quality of scientific evidence for their efficacy. Lyme disease experience and perceived susceptibility increased WTP, and environmental values and risk aversion emerged as important modifying factors. Our findings contribute to new understanding of how individuals weigh trade-offs among human, wildlife, and environmental health and the mechanistic drivers of decision-making. Insights gained from this study can serve to guide conservation, public health communication and vector control policy.



R&R at Frontiers in Environmental Health 

Abstract: This research first proposes a framework to describe vulnerability to adverse consequences of air pollution, then uses this framework to assemble and integrate recent evidence on population and behavioural risk factors associated with vulnerability to air pollution in high and middle income countries. We consider a broad definition of vulnerability, comprised of three interrelated dimensions: (i) exposure, (ii) susceptibility and (iii) adaptation. We advance the existing literature by: (i) developing a framework that allows us to explicitly decompose vulnerability into different components; (ii) outlining the interactions between the components, in particular how adaptation can mitigate exposure and susceptibility; (iii) reviewing the evidence-base of articles with emphasis on evidence pertinent to high and middle income countries.

Publication