Climate-Related Natural Disasters: Reflections on an Agenda for Rural Health Research

Volunteering as prosocial behaviour by medical students following a flooding disaster and impacts on their mental health: A mixed-methods study

BACKGROUND

Volunteering is a form of prosocial behaviour that has a been recognised as having positive benefits for medical students. However, there is a lack of research on what influences students to volunteer during and after weather-related disasters. Our study (1) explores factors related to medical students' willingness and readiness to volunteer, and (2) describes mental health impacts of the flood events on students.

METHODS

We conducted a mixed-methods study of medical students on rural clinical placements in a regional area of Australia, 2 to 6 weeks after two major flooding events in 2022. Data were collected through survey and focus groups. Summary statistics were generated from the survey data, and Fisher's exact test was used to determine associations between student experience of the flood and self-rated well-being. Qualitative data were deductively analysed using Byrne and colleagues' theory of prosocial behaviour during an emergency.

RESULTS

The 36 students who participated in focus groups (including the 34 who completed the survey) (response rates 84% and 79%, respectively) demonstrated high levels of prosocial behaviours and were willing to volunteer. A sense of moral obligation was the primary reason for volunteering, whereas concerns for their physical and psychological safety, and missing key aspects of their training, were the strongest reasons for not continuing to volunteer. Students reported personal stress, anxiety and trauma during this period, with significant associations between self-rated impacts on their well-being and feelings of being terrified, helpless and hopeless during the flooding events and of still being distressed weeks later (p < .05).

CONCLUSIONS

This study expands on prosocial behaviour theory by applying Byrne and colleagues elaborated model in the context of medical student volunteering during the 2022 major flooding events in Australia. Modifiable barriers to prosocial behaviour are identified along with proposed strategies to address these barriers.

Relationship between climate change and skin cancer and implications for prevention and management: a scoping review

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to explore the published research on the relationship between climate change and skin cancer and the implications for prevention, management and further research.

STUDY DESIGN

Scoping review.

METHODS

This scoping review following JBI methodology reviewed English articles identified in searches of MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science and Scopus on 14 April 2023. The screening of articles was completed by two independent reviewers. Data were extracted by a single reviewer and checked by another. A causal pathway diagram was iteratively developed throughout the review and was used to categorise the findings.

RESULTS

The search identified 1376 papers, of which 45 were included in the final review. Nine papers reported primary research, and 36 papers were reviews, perspectives, commentaries, editorials, or essays. The papers examined climate change influencing behaviours related to ultraviolet exposure (30 papers), ambient temperature (21 papers) and air pollution (five papers) as possible risk factors; occupational, rural, and contextual factors affecting skin cancer (11 papers); and prevention and access to health care in the context of climate change (seven papers). Most papers were published in journals in subject areas other than health.

CONCLUSIONS

This review identified ultraviolet radiation, occupation, rising temperature, individual behaviour and air pollution as possible influences on skin cancer rates. Furthermore, it highlights the complexity and uncertainties in the relationship between climate change and skin cancer and the need for further research on this relationship, including primary epidemiological research and reviews that follow recognised review guidelines and include assessment of health services and social determinants in the causal pathways of this relationship.

Flood Risk and Preventive Choices: A Framework for Studying Human Behaviors

The topic of flood phenomena has always been of considerable importance due to the high risks it entails, both in terms of potential economic and social damage and the jeopardizing of human lives themselves. The spread of climate change is making this topic even more relevant. This work aims to contribute to evaluating the role that human factors can play in responding to critical hydrogeological phenomena. In particular, we introduce an agent-based platform for analyzing social behaviors in these critical situations. In our experiments, we simulate a population that is faced with the risk of a potentially catastrophic event. In this scenario, citizens (modeled through cognitive agents) must assess the risk they face by relying on their sources of information and mutual trust, enabling them to respond effectively. Specifically, our contributions include (1) an analysis of some behavioral profiles of citizens and authorities; (2) the identification of the "dissonance between evaluation and action" effect, wherein an individual may behave differently from what their information sources suggest, despite having full trust in them in situations of particular risk; (3) the possibility of using the social structure as a "social risk absorber", enabling support for a higher level of risk. While the results obtained at this level of abstraction are not exhaustive, they identify phenomena that can occur in real-world scenarios and can be useful in defining general guidelines.